
Book^C ^ % 



THREE HOES SCHOOL A DAY: 



TALK WITH PARENTS 



BY WILLIAM L. CEANDAL. 

t ' 



" The true system of Education, for either Man or Woman, is 3^et only in 
expectancy" — Mrs. Paulina W. Davis: Report to Worcester Convention, 
October, 1851. 



-♦♦- 



ALBANY: 

CHARLES VAN BENTHU\SEN, PRINTER. 

1851. 



3 
C 



Oil 



I'^U 



EnU'red, according: to Act of Congress, October 7, 1854, by 

AVlLLTAiNI L. CRANDAL, 

In the Clerk's: Office of ihe U. S. District Court, for tlie 

Northern District of New- York. 



^ 



PEEFACE. 



My object in this work, is to aid in the 
emancipation of children and youth from 
School Slavery. 

As to the work itself, it goes from my 
hands, with warm blessings on the heads 
of the Children — poor, suffering, abused 
Childhood — sorrowing now, and des- 
poiled. 

Albany, October 7, 1854. 



TO 



MY MOTHER. 



PAPiT I. 



" Phrenology undertakes to accomplish for man, what Philosophy performs 
for the external world ; it claims to disclose the real state of thing's, and to pre- 
sent nature unveiled and in her true features." — Prof. Silliman. 



THREE HOURS SCHOOL A DAY : 



TALK WITH PARENTS. 



-♦♦- 



1. Six Hours School a Day, is a curse to 
Children, a curse to Teacliers, a curse to Parents. 
It is rapidly making of the American People a 
nation of cripples — Intellectually, Morally, Phys- 
ically. It is driving stamina out of the nation ! 
It is in the teeth of all the natural laws of the 
human constitution. I challenge every man and 
woman, every boy and girl, in the United States, 
to the proof, that Six Hours School a Day, or a 
Forenoon and Afternoon session, or that mongrel 
thing, a Session from 9 to 2 o'clock, is in harmony 
with any one Law of the Constitution of Man. If 
Three Hours School a Day, then, be true, wiiat 
a terrible lie, is Six ! But how happens it that we 
have Six'? Because some overlook, and the rest 
repudiate, the Science of Man. That's the rea- 
son. The Pharisees of Education, repudiate the 
Science of Man, because, like Christianity, the 
"common people" can understand it. Science 



8 SIX HOURS SCHOOL A DAY, DESTROYS 

denounces the present System, and will demolish 
it. It is a deadly crusade on Nature, and crushes 
the nobility out of men and women. The period 
of Childhood and Youth, is the constructing pe- 
riod. As the layers are put on, from day to day, 
during bodily growth, so is the structure for life. 
Six Hours a Day so enfeebles them for this work, 
that the structure is not more than lialf made, and 
thus the innocent victims hobble and suffer through 
the time they stay on earth : they ntver live ! At 
the best, they have but half the power designed for 
them by Nature. Our Schools, from top to bot- 
tom, and from bottom to top, are Dyspeptic Fac- 
tories ! Where are j^our stalwart men, who hold 
and express Truth, because it is Truth, though 
they stand alone in the world'? So far from that, 
nearly every American seems to think himself a 
goner, if he be not either the head or tail of a 
Party, in Church or State: so thoroughly has this 
dyspeptic imbecility, caused by over-schooling, 
eaten out tlie capacity for the idea that a man 
should "belong" to himself, and should not "be- 
long" to a party, sect, or clique. He may act 
with either^ at times, but always "belonging" to 
himself. We want a race of men and women who 
belong to themselves ! We can't have it, till we 
have Three Hours School a Day : no School af- 
ter 12 o'clock, M., for that day! That must 



INDIVIDUALITY OF CHAHACTER. 9 

come, before Individuality of Character can 
come. We want original men and women : those 
who are themselves, and nobody else. We don't 
want a race " made to order," by being crimped 
Six Hours a Day. Education, is every thought 
and every action from the cradle to the grave. 
To have independent men and women, a portion 
of that thought and action in Childhood and 
Youth, must be independent. Parrots are no 
longer wanted. This — that is, the next ten years 
— is to be an Age of enquiry, of controversy, in 
regard to the Nature of Man, and his relations, 
to which no other Age bears any sort of compari- 
son. Why? Because Science is to take the place 
of Guessing — otherwise called Speculation. The 
man wiiose attainment is to learn and repeat what 
others have said, is no longer wanted. He can 
no longer act a part. The Age for him has gone 
by. Consequently, we should adapt our School 
System to the New Age and the New Wants. We 
now want men and women who can do : who can 
strike a blow now for the race, and furnish their 
IDEA of what the world is to be. The Six Hours 
a Day sj^stem, makes men mere funnels for that 
which is and has been, to run through. The men 
who have made their mark on the world's progress, 
as a general fact, are men who did not, for any 
considerable portion of the period of growth of 



10 EDUCATION, NOW, IS A THING OF 

body, stay in School Six Hours per day. The ex- 
ceptions, are men whose marvellous positive power 
made them proof against all assault from without : 
who could neither be moulded nor crushed by the 
present unnatural System. This eternal cram- 
ming — stuffing — must make Dyspepsia: nothing 
is better settled by the Laws. What wonder, then, 
that we see the transcendant plunge from investi- 
gation and argument, to a hiss, when new Propo- 
sitions in Philosophy or in the Social Relations, 
are brought forward ! Is not a hiss or a sneer, a 
reasonable effort for an Intellectual Dyspeptic 1 
What wonder, then, that men, formed in the image 
of their God, with attributes divine, should so oft 
assume the character of the unarguing goose! 
Free Discussion trampled under foot: for when 
was not weakness the parent of cowardice ? These 
things are — these things will be — till our School 
System gives Intellectual vigor, by giving a chance 
for independent thought, and for physical stamina. 



2. Our Education is now a thing of Fashion, 
and not a thing of Science. It is a thing of man- 
ner and not of matter ; of forms and not of ideas ; 
of words and not of things ; of the way in which 
a thing is said, and not of what is said. Above 
all, it is a thing of Fashion, not of Science. The 
time is to come, and is comparatively at hand, 



FASHION, AND NOT A THING OF SCIENCE. 11 

when proficiency in Education is to consist in 
knowledge of Science, or of the laws and works 
of God, and above all, of that Science of Sciences, 
the Science of Man ; and not in poor, pitiful ver- 
bal criticisms, and " ground and lofty tumbling" 
in Literature, the mere work of Man. 



3. Said an intelligent gentleman to me — "Are 
you in favor of Three Hours, because your idea is 
that they will learn more." " Yes," was my re- 
ply, " because they will learn more, and because 
they will grow more. The business of children 
and youth, is to grow: the Almighty made ar- 
rangements for that, but did not for schools ; and 
with His arrangements we have no right to inter- 
fere." " Then," said he, " the idea is, that school 
labor is not to interfere witfi growtkP 



4. The System of Six Hours School a Day, kills 
the body and kills the mind. By keeping the 
scholar confined so many hours in a day, we kill 
the body : by begetting an inextinguishable feel- 
ing of disgust with everything that pertains to the 
acquisition of learning from books, we kill the 
mind. 



5. The change to Three Hours a Day, is not on 
the ground, that we now, by Six Hours a Day, 



13 CHILDREN SCHOOLED TO DEATH. 

accomplish too much, but that we accomplish too 
little. It is, that we may occupy the highest 
range of attainment, and thus fulfil the real utili- 
tarian demand of the age. The case now is not 
unlike that of the man in an attempt to tal^e up a 
handful of flax'seed : the more tightly he grasps, 
the less flaxseed he takes up. There is a game I 
have heard of, wherein it is said, "The more you 
lay down, the less you take up." Six Hours a 
Day, instead of Three, is that, precisely. 



6. The tendency, in this country, at this time, 
among those whose pecuniary means will enable 
them so to do, is to school their children to death. 
To a frightful number of children, this is literally 
true. Upon thousands and thousands of others, 
six hours per day of confinement to the School 
Eoom, and to its labors, entails a living death. 
Relief, to them, from a life of comparative nothing- 
ness or of suffering, or both, can be sought only 
at the portals of the tomb. Could the frightful 
catalogue of ill wliich results from a single year 
of this over-schooling, in the State of New- York 
alone, be presented, the picture would appal the 
stoutest heart. It would awaken interest in this 
question in the most unfeeling minds ; for wliile 
it is true, that there are some beings in human 
form who do but little to minister to the happiness 



OTHEUS, DEAG OUT AN ENFEEBLED LIFE* 13 

of others, it is not less true that few can be found 
who delight in misery. It is a fact^ that, bj 
the PnESENT System, an untold and incalculable 
amount of misery is implanted every year, and 
which clings to its victims for life, A portion of 
the victims of this policy, find relief in an early 
grave, rending the hearts of fond and doatlng pa- 
rents : the calamity attributed, of course, to some 
disease with a name to it in the Doctor's Books^ 
but which was invited and made a welcome lodger 
in that child's constitution by the enfeebled and 
distorted body and mind produced by the con- 
spiracy of folly, in which the parent and teacher 
had combined against the child. Other victims 
of this conspiracy — ^less fortunate — drag out a pro-- 
longed existence, embittered by weakened and 
deranged powers and functions of body and mind. 
The powers and faculties with which they were 
endowed by nature, are thus perverted ; their in- 
tegrity is thus forever destroyed; and a life of 
suffering, or of comparative mental and physical 
feebleness, or both, is the result. 



7. This Age demands of every one who would 
act well and successfully his part, a higher and 
truer Education than has been demanded by any 
preceding age. To meet this demand, in our go- 
ahead country, children have been crowded into 



14 TKE AIM, NOW, IS THE MOST EDUCATION 

School Rooms six hours a day, for six, eight and 
ten months in the year. This is kept up from the 
age of 4 or 5, to 15 or 21, as the case may be, by 
almost all who can afford the expense in time or 
money. In accordance with the impulsive spirit 
of our people, the question sought to be solved, is, 
the attainment of the greatest amount of what is 
called Education^ in the smallest number of months 
or years. In doing this, the laws which the Cre- 
ator has written on the body and the mind, have 
been overlooked or disregarded. In fact, in the 
matter of Education, hitherto, the body has been 
out of the question ; and Education has been car- 
ried on in our Schools as though the scholar Avas 
all mind and no body : And though the fact that 
the scholar has a body could not be ignored by the 
senses, the idea of educating the body, and edu- 
cating it first of all, and with the same sedulous 
care that we bestow on the mind, as yet remains 
absolutely foreign to the American System of 
Education. This is true, in its whole range, from 
the "infant" Primary to tlie College and high- 
sounding University. Children have been treated, 
in this regard, as though they were so many ma- 
chines of wood, and stone, and iron. I speak in 
general terms. General terms do not include 
exceptions. It would be like sweetest music, 
however, to hear of the exceptions. I do not 



IN THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF YEARS. 15 

know where they are ; but if they can be pro- 
duced in the State of New- York) let all the people 
have the news ! 

8. Nature has rebelled against this outrage on 
her rights. From one end of the State to the 
other, complaints come up of the ^'-Irregularity of 
School Attendance','''' and in some quarters, it has 
been pronounced by School Authorities, one of the 
" alarming " signs of the times. But it is a cheer- 
ing, not an alarming symptom ! It is a certificate 
to the integrity of Nature. It shows that by this 
process, the natures of children have not been 
transformed into stolidity. The children cannot 
stand it. They get rid of what they regard as 
imprisonment, by excuses, when they can — 'by 
truancy, when they must. They do not know 
why, but they know the System is too much for 
them — that it is repugnant. This is all wrong; 
for children delight in school ! Properly managed, 
it is as delightful to them, as any other recreation 
to which they can be treated. By the very laws 
of their being, children and youth are inquisitive. 
They want to know all about it. Hence, they de- 
light in the acquisition of facts — of things new — 
of things unknown. They have everything to 
learn ; some things are learned out of doors, other 
things in the School Room ; and every new thing 



16 nature's rebellion- school may be 

learned pleases them. But tliis delight can exist 
only when other things are in harmony. Circum- 
stances can be so arranged, as to excite other feel- 
ings which shall overpower this, and render ac- 
quisition repugnant and not grateful. But, prop- 
erly conducted— in harmony with the laws of the 
body and of tlie mind — the very operation of ac- 
quiring Knowledge is a real pleasure, in it.^ilj, and 
is its own immediate reward in the happiness it 
secures for the passing hour. While their surplus 
energies remain, how eager they are ! How their 
eyes sparkle with delight! But press this to 
weariness, to lassitude, and you beget disrelish 
and disgust. The buoyant and impulsive nature of 
the c'tild or youths-planted for the wise and high 
purpose of meeting the necessity for superabund- 
ant energy imposed by bodily growth — r* coils 
from weariness and lassitude^ and above all when 
produced by exhaustion of the nervous or electric 
power, accompanied by inactivity of the body. It 
is contrary to the highest, because first, law of 
their nature. The demands of the Law of Growth, 
for fresh and elastic energies, are imperative ; and 
weariness, from exhaustion by inactivity of the 
body and activity of the mind, prevents the ful- 
filment of that law. The extraordinary exu- 
berance of spirit we witness in children and 
youth, and their incontinent love of fun, are but 



DELIGHTFUL. THE DEMANDS OF GROWTH. 11 

tokens of that superabundant energy in tlie general 
economy required to meet tlie necessities of bodily 
growth. Tke first and the main business of children 
and^outh^ is to grow. Whoever interposes to de- 
feat the complete and perfect fulfilment of that 
destiny, with whatever motive,, inflicts on the un- 
fortunate object of his care, the heaviest and the 
bitterest curse. Yet with what folly — and if not 
folly, madness — ^are the requisite means of bodily 
growth withheld from these children asd youth^ 
who, for ten months or for five months in the year^ 
are kept in a School Room for six hours in a day I 
The freest exercise, in the open and pure air, at 
the beck so far as may ]>e of their own free im- 
pulses and volatile spirits, is the daily demand 
of every human being till the body has done grow- 
ing : And thaty he it r€m ember edj is to be had at 
the proper hours. Not only, with them, is the 
current of life to be maintained — not only is the 
demand Avhich daily waste of the body creates, to 
be met — but that other draft on the energies of 
the System, to wit i to add to the structure itself^ 
must be promptly and fully met, or the penalty is 
to be paid during every hour of existence after 
maturity, in the daily use of powers of body and 
of mind, less in quantity, and inferior in quality ^ 
to what those powers might have been. This is a 
perfectly plain case. What is built up during 



18 THE rmST BUSINESS OF CHILDHOOD AND 

growtkj is to be enjoyed^ daily, during the period 
after growfh ceases — and no more. The founda- 
tion is laid during that season, and so it remains, 
"As the tree falleth, so it lies." Language cajinot 
well magnify the importance of this question to 
every individual who has not yet reached maturity 
of bodily growth : who is yet laying the founda- 
tion and building a structure for life, either in 
imbecility or in power. If the testimony of the 
thousands who are now spending their lives, with 
scarcely a topic of greater interest or higher plea- 
sure than their unavailing regrets, could be re- 
corded and published, but little need then be 
added to arouse attention. 



9. The present high-pressure System in School 
Education, everywhere in vogue, is in the teeth of 
the Natural Laws. Three hours per day of con- 
finement in the School Room, is all any human 
being under 21 years of age can endure, and live 
up to the laws of his being. This of course pre- 
supposes, that while in the School Room the 
scholar does Avhat he is there for — works. The 
idea that it is wise for any one to spend an idle 
moment in a school-room, presupposes one of two 
things : either utter ignorance of the effect which 
the light of the sun, pure air, and exercise, have 
on the constitution of man, or else insanity, Igno- 



YOUTH J IS TO GROW. THE STEAM SYSTEM 19 

ranee or insanity, only, could tolerate the idea, 
that it is wisdom to keep a child or youth in a 
School Koom, unemployed. So my position is 
based on the idea, that the business of every one, 
during the Three Hours, is Work. Some more 
time than this, during the 24 hours might be spent 
in study — in looking over and preparing lessons 
for the next day, in looking after illustrations 
from men and books — ^but under other and more 
inviting circumstances than the irksomeness, te- 
dium, weariness, lassitude and uneasiness, which 
ever attend the Second Session of three hours, the 
same day. The Books could be taken up as a 
voluntary, cheerful and agreeable relaxation, after 
nourishing and invigorating and healthful labor 
or play, or both ; but this is not to be urged : let 
it be voluntary work. In passing, T will re- 
mark, that useful services, when properly under- 
stood and carried on, are but another name for 
play; though, with children and youth, never to 
be substituted entirely for what is technically 
termed Play. For this reason, that in the play or 
sports of children and youth, the Voluntary prin- 
ciple is at work, and that is the energizing prin- 
ciple of the human mind ; and Plays, so-called, 
are something they can originate, comprehend and 
direct, and for that reason, they go into them with 
a perfect unction, and the action of the mind, as 



20 PREVENTS GROWTH. PRESENT SYSTEM 

well as the action of tlie body, sends the hot blood 
through every fibre. 

Now, if this be true, that Three Hours a Day 
of confinement in the School Room — three hours 
per day of Mental Labor there — is all that the 
constitution can stand and meet the demands of 
growth, then it is true that our present School 
System may truly be denominated the "-Murder of 
the Innocents.'''' Such, I firmly believe it to be. 
That in rushing on, with steam-like energy, to the 
accomplishment of a desired end, disregarding 
and trampling on eternal and fixed laws, which 
forever control results — like a strong man strug- 
gling in a morass, where every etfort but sinks 
him deeper in the mire — we are no less surely de- 
feating the attainment of stamina of character and 
of intellectual power. The race is dwindling, not 
gaining, in mental and physical force. 



10. h it not true^ that the truest object of care^ 
is to secure^ at the period when manhood or woman- 
hood is reached^ the strongest and healthiest body ? — 
in other words, its highest development] If so, 
then does not he — whether parent or teacher — 
who, intentionally or unintentionally, prevents 
this, in'ilict a most outrageous and incalculable, 
as well as irreparable, injury? There will not be 
any debate here. All feel conscious, that a strong 



FALSE. GIVES TOO MUCH BAD AIR. 21 

and sound body — a body capable not only of en- 
durance, but capable of resisting external influ- 
ences to disease — -is a capital for life, the value of 
which cannot be computed in money. It is per- 
petual wealth — 'it is perpetual pecuniary indepen- 
dence — it is perpetual ability to aid others in the 
kind ofl5.ces of friendship and love— a perpetual 
source of contentment and happiness. Ihis^ I 
say, is the first object of School Education — of 
any Education fit to be called Education ; while 
the fact that it is made neither the first nor the 
last, in our present System, proves that the Pre- 
sent System is false. 



11. Now, how is it with the Child or Youth, at 
School 1 He goes in, say at 9 o'clock, and remains 
till 12 — with perhaps 15 minutes recess during 
that period. He has an hour or two hours, as the 
case may be, for dinner, and then three hours again 
at School, as in the forenoon. Now the laws of 
the body declare, that pure air alone can secure 
pure blood. There is no medication that can give 
purity to the blood of the human body, except 
pure air, and in the proper quantity, ^nd fur- 
thermore^ there can he no contrivance by which the 
air of a room occupied by a numerous company ^ can 
be as pure as that breathed under the broad canopy 
of heaven. No one, who has given the topic a 



22 PURE AIR MAKES PURE BLOOD. ACTIVE 

second tliouglit, will gainsay this. Impure air is 
a narcotic, to stupefy the mind. The same laws 
also declare, that active exercise, at the proper 
time, is equally indispensable to maintain the body 
and mind in their natural vigor. Superadded to 
these, in Childhood and Youth, is the demand of 
growth, or new formation, on the energies of the 
circulating system ; for, as Dr. Brandreth so pithily 
says, the ''Blood is the Constitution :" or, at least, 
the Constitution comes from the Blood. The same 
laws further declare, that when food is taken, and 
for some time afterwards, the nervous or electric 
energy, and following that, an increased amount 
of blood, ought to be devoted to the stomach, to 
enable that organ adequately to secrete its digest- 
ing fluid, and to perform its newly required mus- 
cular action. 



12. J^ow^ how stands the account ? Can the first 
of these laws, in the case of a Child or Youth, 
who is confined with 25 or 100, as the case may 
be, in a School Room, for six hours in a day, be 
observed I Is the peculiar and imperative demand 
for pure air, at that period of life, thus adequately 
met? Is the law fulfilled? And does the account 
in reference to active, vigorous, wild, exuberant 
exercise, stand one whit better? Is the law here 
fulfilled? And how is it with the law of diges- 



EXERCISE INDISPENSABLE— AT RIGHT HOURS. Z3 

Hon 1 — -a law on whicli the entire machinery of 
the human body hinges. Until it can be shown 
that the same thing can be in two places at the 
same time, it will forever remain true, that active 
exercise of the body or of the mind, during the 
period thus allotted for the intermission at noon^ 
is a violation of the natural laws. Men do it- 
children do it— and they do not fall down dead 
in their tracks ; they are not suddenly or violent- 
ly assailed with pain or disease ; yet this does not 
change the truth, that they have done their bodily 
powers injustice — ^have cut oif energy, and vigor, 
and tone of health they might have enjoyed — by 
trampling under foot the laws of digestion. Ac- 
tive exercise of the mind, calls the electric or 
nervous energy to the brain, and following in its 
track, an increased amount of blood ; for, as Elec- 
tricity circulates the blood, so, wherever there is 
increased Electrical energy, there is more blood. 
Therefore, whenever there is activity of mind or of 
body soon after eating, the stomach is robbed of 
energies and aids which the Author of Nature pro- 
vided for it. JSTeed I add, that He does not pro- 
vide in vainl This increased amount of blood, 
furnishes to the stomach requisite warmth; the 
increased amount of Electricity, furnishes the re- 
quisite force for its muscular action. These are 
indispensable to the adequate perfoimance of its 



ill SIX HOURS A DAY VIOLATES THESE LAWS. 

important and sovereign functions during the early 
stages of digestion. The stimulus of the presence 
of New Food in the stomach, attracts to it these 
two agencies, essential in their character, and 
admitting of no substitution. 

Again : Be it noted, carefully, that active ex- 
ercise of the body, throws a greater proportion of 
the electric energy, and consequently of the blood, 
to the extremities and surface of the body : hence, 
exercise should be taken, neither immediately be- 
fore nor immediately after meals : For thus, the 
electricity and the blood are comparatively placed 
beyond the reach of influence of the stomach, when 
it is excited to action by the stimulus of a new 
supply of food. In each case the injury inflicted, 
will be, of course, in proportion to the intensity 
of the exercise of body or mind. The Law being, 
now and forevermore, that repose, quiet, are de- 
manded of both mind and body, immediately 
before and immediately after meals. And it fol- 
lows, of course — the premises being true — that 
Exercise of body taken when there is this inter- 
nal demand on the energies, in all its influence on 
the System must, in itself, be valueless, in com- 
parison with that taken not only when that de- 
mand does not exist, but w^hen the internal organs 
as loudly call for exercise as they now repudiate 
it. The same is true of exercise of the mind. 



WHEN EXERCISE SHOULD BE TAKEN. 25 

At one time, Nature demands that the forces con- 
verge to the stomach to enable U to perform its 
functions ; at another, Nature demands that they 
diverge to the surface and extremities, so tliat their 
functions can be performed. 

Will any intelligent man or woman gainsay this 
statement of the Natural Laws of Exercise? If 
not, will any one say, that by our System of two 
Sessions, or of Six or Five Hours Scho':*!. a Day, 
these laws are, or can be observed 1 



13. The JVatural Laws show, that the Exercise so 
imperiously demanded by Childhood and Youth, 
should be had at the very time they are now confined 
in the School Room, in the afternoon. As an en- 
thusiastic Frenchman might say, that is the time 
for " von grand^^ exercise, for the 24 hours. Shut- 
ting them up, therefore, is contrary to Law. 

Again : The blood not only takes on oxygen and 
electricity from the air, through the lungs, at 
every breath, but the amount, in a given period 
of time, is greatly enhanced by active exercise. 
When we exercise actively, there is more air 
and more blood passing through the lungs, in 
the same number of minutes, than when the body 
is comparatively motionless. 

And now what do we see? At the very time 
that this life-giving exercise — in sports that give 
2 



26 teacher's main business to crush 

buoyancy and elasticity to the mind as well as 
life-power to the body — we see the Innocents 
pinned to the benches of the School Room ! Na- 
ture rebels, and asserts her inalienable right to 
exercise and pure air : the teacher puts forth the 
" authority" with which he is vested by man, to 
quell the insurrection ; and here we find ourselves 
at once in a state of war : the " invaluable time" 
and glorious talents of the Teacher, being neces- 
sarily, to a great extent, devoted to the " invalu- 
able" purpose of conquering these belligerents, 
not to Nature, but to usurped authority. For re- 
quiring rebellion against Nature is usurpation ; and 
it is a mild term to apply to him who knowingly 
will tread his heel on its decrees. And this, we 
are to be told, is the true steam track to a sound 
Education ! 



14. Such are the antagonistic relations in which 
the present System of Six Hours a day places the 
Children and Youth who are its victims to three 
of the Natural Laws of the human body. From 
these views, and from a general consideration of 
the whole subject, I am led to the conclusion that 
School Attendance for the day, should never go 
beyond 12 o'clock at noon. In that case, the 
School should commence at 9 o'clock, for those of 
8 years of age and upwards, with two recesses of 



REBELLION. NO SCHOLARS UNDER EIGHT. 27 

15 minutes each; and at 10 o'clock for all under 
that age who attend, which would give the latter 
2 hours per day. Or, if people will send Children 
under eight, we might let them go at 9 and go 
home at 11 ; but I prefer the other, as then they 
can and will go straight home to dinner. But 
as Public Schools are now conducted, attendance 
under eight years of age, is an unmitigated curse. 
However, this attendance will hardly be enough 
seriously to harm them, perhaps not at all, as the 
restraint being of short duration will not injure 
the body, and will hardly be sufficient to inspire 
everlasting hate of the School Room, as a prison. 
In fact^ the School Room is but a Prisorij to one 
shut vp in ity doing nothing, or with nothing to do ; 
and that is almost absolutely the condition of those 
less than eight years of age now in the Public 
Schools, especially under the modern and " mod- 
el" (!) System of '' Classification." Indeed, un- 
der the present System of teaching Words from a 
book — instead of telling them Facts, Things and 
Ideas, and putting them to the wide-awake work 
of Self-Instruction— whether ostensibly busy or 
idle, the School Room, to those under eight, is a 
prison and only a prison. Would to God a child 
under eight might never again be seen in a Public 
School Room, till the work and the ideas which 
now prevail there are totally Revolutionized! 



28 HOME BLACKBOARDS. 

The Creator never designed the little innocents 
should study books — to do that which they nei- 
ther comprehend nor enjoy — as we know from the 
fact that He did not give them the ability or the 
disposition. 

15. If Parents would have a blackboard and 
chalk in the kitchen, and one in the sitting-room, 
they would find some very pleasant occupation 
for their young children. Do the '' little fellows" 
become interested in a cat, a dove, a hen, a hawk, 
a horse, a cow, in any thing under the heavens 1 
Then 'print it yourself, in good big letters on the 
blackboard, and tell them that is the way they 
put the name of the thing in books. You say it 
over: they saj^ it over. They sow know what 
"dog" is, whenever they see it printed. You, 
spell it — "d-o-g": they spell it. If you can 
draw " dog," then draw it, and they will have fun 
enough in printing dog and drawing dog. And 
so on. You and the children will have lots of 
fun; the children will grow all the while; and 
know how to print all of the alphabet and spell 
out half the newspaper, without dreaming they 
had learned anything ! 



16. I wish to repeat the expression of my con- 
viction that School Attendance for the Day, should 



NO SCHOOL AFTER 12 o'CLOCK. 29 

close at Meridian. I repeat it, because it is a 
point around which many considerations arise, not 
only in reference to the Natural Laws, but to 
Policy or Convenience ; and I therefore wish to 
bring it distinctly before every mind. 



17, But this is not all. The reference to the 
Natural Laws is not yet complete. I say ''refer- 
ence" ; for the space allotted in this work, does 
not permit an examination. The intelligent reader 
will do that for himself, as well as cite, in further 
illustration, kindred laws, which are herein not 
even referred to. In fact, this proposition of Three 
Hours a Day, involves all the Laws which relate to 
the health and strength of body or mind; for those 
Laws are one Harmonious Network: they are 
strings in unison : when one is broken or unstrung. 
Harmony is destroyed, and the whole is out of 
tune. So that to discuss it fully would be to 
present all that can relate to the Science of Edu- 
cation. 

18. But to go further. Not only by the present 
System of Six Hours per Day, is the Child or 
Youth deprived, at the proper time^ of an adequate 
supply of exercise and pure air, but a counter 
draft is made on his energies in the School Room, 
to an extent which does not leave vigor enough 



30 THE PRETENCE IS, SIX HOURS A DAY 

to possibly meet, during the 24 hours, the natural 
demands of the body for the maintenance of its 
own healthiness and growth. 

The pretence^ on which children and youth are 
kept in School for Six Hours a Day, is, that they 
are to Study. That for so much of the 24 hours, 
at least, they are to be engaged in Intellectual 
Labor. Upon any other supposition, this confine- 
ment is one of the most shameful and barbarous 
impositions ever practised on human beings; 
and those guilty, would deserve punishment for 
depriving their victims of health, and restraining 
them from gaining attainable physical develope- 
ment, on "false pretences." To compel this im- 
prisonment, in the absence of this pretence, hon- 
estly made, would be monstrous, and a crime of 
high grade, if only the intent w^ere to injure. Eut 
are we told that these unoifending, though not 
uncomplaining or unresisting victims, do really 
study during those six hours? — are actually de- 
voting that period to mental labor? Then ought 
the System to be abandoned instanter ! For this 
is what no child or youth can endure^ and maintain 
the integrity of his constitution. This it is, which 
compels so many parents to walk beside the graves 
of '■^ bright''^ children, — "too good for earth," &c., 
&c., — who do study six hours a day, in School, 
only to be transferred from the " head of the class" 



OF STUDY. HOPES BLASTED BY IT. 31 

to the headstone of the silent tomb. The hopes 
of parents are blighted ; they feel keenly the loss 
of one from whom they expected so much of hap- 
piness, in a brilliant future; and they wonder 
" why it is so" ! This it is, again, which makes 
your philosophers at ten and fifteen, your block- 
heads at twenty-five and forty. The fire of their 
energies is burnt out ; while, by the same process, 
the furnace which should feed the flame for life, 
is made a wreck. Electricity is the power of the 
man. Study exhausts — ^rapidly exhausts — that 
force, while at the same time it is doing little 
towards replenishing it. No, no ! he who compels 
or permits an intelligent child — one with a posi- 
tive developement of the Electrical Temperament 
and Intellectual Faculties, — who is consequently 
fond of mental activity, and whose mind acts with 
celerity and energy — to study in a School Room 
Six Hours a Day, is a destroyer of the fairest of 
God's works. He is a destroyer of a well de- 
veloped human being : a destroyer of the highest 
forms of human usefulness and happiness. He is 
a curse to the race : and better, far better, that he 
had "never been born." 



19. Now, what are the conclusions to which we 
are driven by this view of the case '? What are 
some of the effects of attempting to secure six 



32 SCHOOLS MANAGED AS THOUGH A HUMAN 

hours study per day, in a School Room? The 
stupid and stolid will not study but a small por 
tion of the time, and therefore this protracted 
confinement does them no good, intellectually. 
To the mentally active, it brings overwork, and is 
killing — bringing premature death, or premature 
wreck of the physical and mental System. It ex- 
hausts and ruins one class : the other it disgusts. 
In the minds of the physically stout — those in 
whom the physical predominates — and in child- 
hood and youth the physical should predominate — 
a distaste for everything connected with the very 
idea of study in books is engendered, which time 
cannot change. Their nature, in tones most impe- 
rious, demands a physical freedom they are not 
permitted to enjoy. If there is anything that will 
excite rebellion in a stout child or youth, with a 
well developed and sound pair of lungs, it is to be 
fastened to a bench with scarcely any other occu- 
pation for hours than to breathe impure air. 



20, I say again, that it seems as though School 
Education, in this country, from the Primary to 
the College and University, was carried on under 
the idea that all that constitutes a human being, 
so far as School Education is concerned, is Mind 1 
And that but little more regard is paid to the body, 
except for purposes of castigation, than as though 



BE1N& WAS ALt MlNe ANO KO BODY. 83 

it did not exist : or that, if recognized as existing^ 
as existing witliout laws, and equally without any 
natural and irreversible relations to the Mindl 
We train one-half of a man, and let the other 
half take care of itself : and call it, Education ! 



31. K'ow for a little repetition. Before eating, 
the stomach is empty. The stomach is idle. The 
stomach has nothing to do. It is in a state of 
rest. The dropping of food into the stomach, is 
action in itself. This instantly brings more Elec- 
tricity to the stomach ; for action and electricity 
are inseparable. And this brings more blood to 
the stomach ; for as the shadow waits on the sub- 
stance, so does blood on the movements of Elec- 
tricity, As more and more food is taken into the 
stomach, there is more electricity and more blood. 
The stomach is a long bag, and has muscles that 
go round it like a ring round a napkin. These 
muscles act, as all other muscles do, by expand- 
ing and contracting. Well, A¥hen food is put in 
the stomach, it is churned. The muscular rings 
at one end of the stomach contract, and drive the 
food to the other : the muscles at the other end 
return the compliment, and so the w^ork goes on 
till the food is churned to a pulp. If the boys 
and girls will go and read the proper books, and 
hear the proper lectures, they will find out all 
2* 



34 NO ACTIVE EXERCISE IMMEDIATELY 

about it» This cliurning operation requires Extra 
Power. Tliat extra power^ is of course Electri- 
city; as Electricity is the power of the human 
Constitution » It follows, then, that if we get up 
action in tile System, in opposition to this of the 
Stomach, Within say certainly half an hour after 
eating, We take from the stomach this extra elec- 
tricity, and deprive it of this indispensable extra 
power. And it follows, also, that, if we do so, 
digestion cannot be perfect. 

Extra blood is needed at the stomach, for in- 
creased Warmth. But it cannot be there, unless 
the increased Electricity is there to hold it. 

Of course this argument proves— if it proves 
anything— that active exercise should not be taken 
for half an hour before meals. Because that sends 
the Electricity and blood to the extremities and 
surface, or into the brain, instead of having it 
equalized through the system, ready to yield im- 
mediate obedience to the requirements of the 
stomach. These are Laws. They are Laws of 
the Eternal. Deny them— disregard them — and 
they are Laws, still. And upon every Child and 
Youth in the State of New- York, they daily exer- 
cise a controlling influence in determining what 
shall be the size, solidify, beauty and perfection of 
the body, the day it ceases to grow. If there be 
one who has doubts, a small expense of time and 



BEFORE OR AFTER EATING. 35 

money in investigation, and a little observation, 
will speedily scatter tliem. 



22. I have stated what is the first object in the 
training of those who have not attained maturity 
of bodily growth. Il: is to secure the highest health, 
strength, and perfection of body. The next is to 
secure a corresponding developement of mind. 
The latter cannot be attained without the 
FORMER. Then, at maturity, Ave have a strong, 
healthy, well developed Body and Mind: in a 
word, a Man, or a Woman. In this Education, a 
great variety of things in Nature and in Art should 
be learned ; some attention paid to words ; a taste 
and thirst for knowledge inspired by the indul- 
gence of the natural desires of the faculties in the 
studies pursued ; and the art of teaching one's self, 
learned by the habit of teaching one's self. The 
subject of such a training, is fitted for the duties 
and responsibilities of life ; for a cheerful and con- 
tented career ; for mental independence ; and for 
the due improvement or use of the powers and 
faculties bestowed on him by the Creator for his 
own happiness and for the happiness of others. 



23. Whenever possible, where there are Child- 
ren there should be a Play House, or a Play Room, 
with windows secured from breakage, for the use 



36 PLAY HOUSE FOR CHILDREN. 

of the children in all sorts of weather which ren- 
der out-door play unpleasant, unprofitable in the 
way of wear and tear of clothing, or exposing their 
health to injury. On these days, the children 
need the exercise, as much as on pleasant days ; 
they need to " holler " that their lungs may be 
exercised; while this arrangement will relieve the 
older members of the household from a racket 
which is not supposed to do them any good. It 
may be, such an arrangement would cost a little 
money and trouble ; if the money is not to be had, 
that is an end of the argument ; but to those who 
can command the trifle that would be necessary, 
I would say, you have no business to be in charge 
of a lot of children, if you cannot take as much 
special pains with their Education as you would 
with that of a fancy Shanghai, or witli that of a 
pet colt for those children to ride. 



24. Now, the consummate folly of this business 
of School Education, is in the idea, (hat the high- 
est interests and integrity of the body can he sacri- 
ficed, and at the same time the highest interests and 
integrity of the mind he maintained. Here lies the 
root of the folly. By quack Educators — with 
faces as long and rigii as their brains are stolid — 
we will be told : — •' It is very well, all this talk 
"about the body; but it is the mind^ — the immor- 



THEY DEGRADE THE MIND, WHO 37 

" tal mind — ^wliose interests we are seeking to pro- 
" mote ! It is the mind which is the man : the 
"body is of no consequence compared witli the 
" condition of the mind." And so, in School Edu- 
cation, the body is substantially forgotten. I say 
"forgotten." I claim a right to this inference, 
when the natural laws of the body — in the School 
System now in vogue — are hourly, daily, yearly, 
systematically, trampled on. I repeat, that the 
inference from the action of parents and teachers, 
who, in School Education, trample on the Laws 
of the Body, is, either that they forget, or that 
they deny their existence. They are of course 
incapable of the crime of knowing and disregard- 
ing them. For every tyro in the Science of Man, 
knows that so blended and intertwined are the 
relations of Body and Mind, that the integrity of 
one cannot be assailed^ and the integrity of the 
other remain. It is true, that the body is not 
immortal; that it is the tenement of the mind 
during its stay on earth ; but it is equally and for- 
ever true that the condition of the occuj)ant is 
ever affected by the condition of the tenement. 
Nature and Revelation unite in this testimony. 
Hence, they degrade the mindj who set at naught 
the laws which govern the body. 



25. As the mariner takes his "observation" of 



38 DISREGARD THE LAWS OF THE BODY. 

the sun or fixed stars, to determine liis position, 
and the engineer liis "bearings," so must we per- 
petually recur to Truths in Nature, to ascertain 
our own on a question, like this. Nature is our 
law-book; and we must consult it at every turn. 
" Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty," and 
so it is of Truth. What do we wish to accom- 
plish ? — what are the ends in view ? — are the ques- 
tions ever recurring to minds desirous of ascer- 
taining and removing the defects of any System. 



2C. A vast deal is said, done and expended, for 
Education ; it is admitted upon every hand to be 
the question of the age ; yet in its primary object we 
witness degeneracy and deplorable failure. That 
object, is a Body capable of sustaining great 
physical and mental endurance; which, on emer- 
gencies, can sustain extraordinary physical or 
intellectual labor; and which can successfully 
resist external influences tending to disease. This 
is the first result that is wanted from Education. 
But we see it not\ If so, where? What town or 
county in the State of New- York, can now point 
to a School conducted on this principle ? — which 
point to a race of Youth, to compare in physical 
development and power with the youth of 20 or 
of 40 years ago, or of any previous generation in 
the history of our country ? — and yet the high- 



WHERE IS THERE A TRUE SCHOOL 1 39 

pressure principle in Education, in tlie minds of 
some so-called Educators in our State, has not yet 
begun to be realized. Heaven protect us from its 
full development! If they could only get the 
glorious bodies of these children and youth into a 
state of mummifaction, then the perfection of 
Education would be inaugurated, and they would 
be satisfied I But, badinage apart, what is our 
race of Children and Youth, in physical propor- 
tions and power, getting to be? Narrow-chested, 
narrow-shouldered, slight, shrunken, nervous! 
And where is bodily strength or power of endur- 
ance?— where originality, elasticity, self-reliance, 
independence of mind ? 



27. The manifestation of mind depends on the 
body. Intellectual labor exhausts rapidly the 
electric energy ; the electric energy is the power 
of the body ; and hence, labor must cease when 
there is no more of that energy supplied by the 
body. 

It is moreover true, that intellectual labor and 
energy, at proper times and to a proper degree, 
give vigor and power to the body. They excite 
electrical action, and quicken the circulation of 
the blood. They tend to the perfect development 
of the man ; and that development, in no particu- 
larj can be perfect, so long as any one faculty or 



40 THE ENDS OF EDUCATION, 

function is left without adequate employment. 
Hence, the sublime folly of the idea, that a Her- 
cules in mind, should not also be a Hercules in 
physical strengtli, or in power of endurance ; a 
folly begotten in total ignorance of the natural 
laws. It is of course equally true, that physical 
energy and activity, at the proper times and to 
the proper degree, add equally to the elasticity 
and power of the mind. 



28. Now, therefore, if the main ends of Educa- 
tion, be — ^a strong and healthy body — a strong and 
healthy mind — and the taste and capacity for self- 
instruction — what shall we, what ought we to say, 
of this System of imprisoning Children and Youth 
Six Hours a Day? By reason of the manifold 
violations of Natural Law thus committed, we 
virtually transform our 12.000 Public Schools into 
so many State Prisons, with Keepers regularly 
installed, whose primary and even main business, 
as abundant facts overwhelmingly prove, is to 
quiet and to quell the reigning spirit and mani- 
festations of mutiny and insubordination. 



29. Activity being pre-eminently a law of the 
nature given to Childhood, every hour spent witliin 
tlie walls of a School Room, inactively, begets dis- 
gust for the place, and for everything connected 



THE TEACHER " FINISHING " EDUCATION ! 41 

with it. Lassitude, weariness, an oppressive sense 
of confinement and constraint, are among tlie 
consequences, and repugnance inevitably begets 
resistance. Tlie disgust thus inspired for study 
and the gaining of knowledge — if not for know- 
ledge itself — becomes inextinguishable. Hence, 
how rarely, after the face is joyfully, for the last 
time, turned from the School door, do we hear of 
Study, in all the succeeding years of life. Study 
has not been made delightful ! It has been taken 
as medicine is taken, with wry faces, under com- 
pulsion, or the paramount impression that it would 
" do them good !" It is also a sad fact, that with 
a majority of Educators, (so-called,) the idea pre- 
vails that it is their mission to " finish" the Edu- 
cation of those under their charge. And such is 
the result — the inevitable result — of the System 
in vogue. Instead of making the path pleasant, 
and one which, from being pleasant, they will fol- 
low through life, they fill it with briars and thorns, 
from whose scratches those compelled to travel 
in it are glad to escape. And then they talk to 
them about the " hill of Science" in a way that is 
enough to make a boy's back ache to think of it. 
Now, how many quit school, at whatever age, 
congratulating themselves, in thought, on the re- 
lief which escape, forever, from study, affords ! 
This all results from being false to Nature. Na- 



43 REPUGNANCE TO SCHOOL ITS PRESENT 

ture is Truth; and wlien violated, the penalty 
must be jiaid. It is not true, that there is a 
natural repugnance to the acquisition of know- 
ledge, in children or youth. The exact reverse 
is the fact. Yet it is true, that there is an almost 
universal repugnance to School. Its chief attraction, 
is the play it gives their Social Nature out of doors. 
Whatever day occurs on which " school does not 
keep," is regarded as the choicest on the calendar, 
and hailed Avith a delight as unmixed as it is un- 
bounded. On the contrary, was their School 
Work kept within the limits of what might be 
termed their School Power for the Day ; were 
they to be kept Avide awake and at work as briskly 
as so many bees every moment while in School 
— (and so they could and would work, if their en- 
ergies were fresh, and there was a prospect ahead 
for rest and play, and if the Teacher, too, were 
active and alive and energetic and playful in 
spirit, as then he might be) — if these things were 
true^ the children would regard the School as one of 
their chief est delights. They would attend Avith 
alacrity and regularity — aye, for the love of it, 
as variety and relaxation. 



30. How intensely absurd is our Avhole School 
System ! The pretence is, that it is designed to fit 
those who attend it, for practical life. Well, how, 



ATTRACTION. PRESENT SYSTEM ABSURD. 43 

in life, is intellectual progress in power and 
knowledge, to be made ? By self-instruction. By 
self-reliance. And yet this School System, is to 
give this power, by depriving the scholars of the 
possibility of self-instruction and self-reliance! 
It makes them the mere puppets of the Teacher : ■ 
has them walk by perpetually leaning on his 
crutch: when they leave school, they have to 
throw the crutch away, and walk alone ! This is 
the way our present Sj^stem '' fits " people for life ; 
while Three Hours a Day comes in, and points to 
an opportunity for self-action of the mind during 
the period of Schoolhood. 



31. Children are fond of variety. Their brisk 
circulation, the absence of knowledge and of ca- 
pacity for reflection, make them so. Adopt the 
plan here proposed — Three Hours a Day, with 
two 1 5 minute recesses taken out of it — one at the 
end of the first hour, and one at the end of the next 
three-quarters of an hour, to ventilate the Eoom 
and the lungs of the Scholars and Teachers, and 
to give the circulation impetus for the next hour 
of motionless work; — I say, adopt this policy, and 
the children will rush with delight to the School — 
aye, with the same inexpressible joy, with which 
they now rush from it ! And what an advantage 
we thus secure! The very Vitality of Educa- 



44 VOLUNTARY LABOR ONLY, IS OF VALUE, 

tion! For that intellectual labor alone which is 
voluntary and cheerful^ adds strength to the mind — 
alone adds to the stores of memory. It is only 
when the mind acts Voluntarily, that it possesses 
Energy. Everybody knows this. His own expe- 
rience — not books — ^is everyone's teacher for this. 
Unless the mind so act, how can it strike out new 
or bold paths of thought and investigation, and 
perseveringly follow them? And in gaining a 
knowledge of facts, as in Spelling, Reading, Ge- 
ography, History, &c., &c., the same law prevails. 
Their acquisition depends on Memory. Attention 
is the secret of Memory. Interest is the secret of 
Attention. Interest, is impulse; and Impulses, 
are Voluntary — or, individual. 

Such are truths existing in Nature. We now, 
in School Education, disregard them : we violate 
them. Practically, we are " wise above what is 
written f for Nature's Laws w^ere written by the 
finger of God. The rebellion among children 
against school, now, results mainly from our at- 
tempts to compel them to rebel against Nature. 



32. Irregularity of School Attendance is an 
injury to the one who is guilty of it. For this 
great evil in our Public Schools, there is no con- 
ceivable remedy j save the change here proposed. I 
say, none other is possible. In saying so, I assume 



RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS. 45 

that in the State of New- York, the school attend- 
ance of the child will be forever regulated by 
the parent, except in cases of drunkenness or other 
insanity. He who supposes otherwise, utterly 
mistakes the spirit of our people. The only con- 
dition that will soon be imposed for the enjoyment 
of the benefits of our comparatively Free System, 
will be good behavior while in attendance. Nature 
and Revelation place the child under the care and 
control of the parent ; and the Author of Nature 
and Revelation, makes the parent responsible for 
that control. Nature has written all over the 
brain of Parents that they are the guardians of 
the child ; it binds them to fidelity by an oath to 
which all words are but as mockery : while Hea- 
ven not only gives explicit sanction, but registers 
the account of each individual parent with this 
agency. It is safe, then, to assume, in a State 
where Liberty is upheld as a Principle and not 
as a Convenience, that these sacred Natural 
Rights will be undisturbed by the remorseless and 
grim tread of majority despotism. 

Such being the case, it follows that there can be 
no remedy for the present great evil of Irregu- 
larity OF School Attendance, save the Change 
now proposed — abandoning the artificial, high- 
pressure System, and returning to a quiet and easy 
observance of the Natural Laws. For, parents of 



46 THE THREE HOUR SYSTEM WILL 

even moderate intelligence — with no knowledge 
of the natural laws of body or of mind — will not 
send children of high nervous organization six 
hours in a day, five days in a week, for ten or for 
five months in a year. The giving way of the 
physical stamina — the frequent complaints of 
pains and " feeling unwell " — cannot escape their 
interested observation, and will admonish them 
that such is but the sure road to death or imbe- 
cility. But alas ! in too many cases, the feeble — 
I had almost said febrile — ^vanity of parents at 
the " wonderful progress " of the boy or girl, 
overcomes their judgment, and but leads the way 
of their own sorrowing footsteps to the grave of 
the ''brilliant" child. And if such do not, in 
childhood or youth, lead the procession to the 
chamber of death , that other result follows, which 
already, to the Scientific and observing, is a no- 
ticeable feature in our social economy, to wit : — 
whether male or female, they give way, as soon as 
they assume the practical and laborious duties of 
life. Tliey sink, under the first strong emergency ; 
not perhaps, wholly out of sight, yet go through 
life but one-half tlie man or woman, in physical 
and mental stamina, nature intended and provided 
they should be. 

Now, can anything be more obvious, than that, 
under the present System, if parents do not know 



CURE IRREGULARITY OF ATTENDANCE. 47 

enough, Teachers who understand their business, 
should see to it, as they Avould save a child from 
drowning, that such as are here described do not, 
under the present System, attend School regularly 1 
That is, if persuasion and argument with parents 
will prevent it. As parents grow more intelligent 
in reference to the Natural Laws, and the true 
Ends of Education, they will not permit their 
children to attend regularly upon this steam sys- 
tem, if it continue to be kept up. For, outside 
of the Schools, and in spite of them, many are 
learning the Natural Laws. We shall then have 
the best class of scholars that can adorn our 
schools, irregular in attendance. These will be 
irregular, because they are inclined to study too 
much. Then, that other large class — for, thank 
God ! specimens still remain among us — in whom 
the physical nature is so strong as to demand air 
and exercise, and utterly to repudiate intellectual 
labor, except to a small amount per day, they will 
play truant enough, so as altogether to make " con- 
fusion worse confounded" reign in the Schools so 
long as the present unnatural System is persisted 
in. I speak after the " manner of men" ; for that 
" confusion" is order, compared with our present 
School Arrangements. 



33. Again: There are a large proportion of pa- 



48 WORK OF CHILD, OFTEN NEEDED DAILY. 

rents who either need the service in some form, 
of their children for a part of the d'ay^ or to whom 
it is a most decided convenience. It is wliat tlieir 
interests and inclination, (necessities often,) de- 
mand. Jls things are noWj this demand cannot be 
met without Irregularity of Attendance. Adopt the 
Plan proposed, and all will move on harmoni- 
ously, with both parent and child and school. 
But this is incidental, though not unimportant — 
for, thank God ! the beautiful web of the economy 
of life, is to a great extent composed of delicate 
and of " common" threads : yet, sad to relate, we 
often mar the beauty of the whole, by overlook- 
ing or disregarding, in our pride, the humblest of 
them all AVe want to do things on too "grand" 
a scale, to allow us to consider and give weight to 
common things ! If this be not the fact, then be 
so good as to say so. Change the present Plan, 
and not only can this needed assistance from the 
children be had, daily, hut the parents would he 
ahle to send the child to School more days in a year, 
than they can under the present Plan. 



34. Is it not of the first importance that, grow- 
ing with the growth of the child and youth, should 
be incorporated in the mind the Idea that he or 
she is responsible for doing something for his or 
her own immediate welfare, and fbv the immediate 



A TRADE J GIVES MANHOOD. 49 

welfare of others'? Three Hours School a Day, 
furnishes precisely the opportunity for this. It 
enables the boy or girl to do something in the way 
of Manual Labor, every day, which shall be of 
value to the family. If you have no occupation 
for the boy, he can go in the afternoon and be 
learning a trade, and you can allow him to have 
his own earnings, and let him expend them under 
the eye of his parents, for a Library of his own, 
Musical Instruments, Musical Instruction, &c., &c. 
Let the boy be hardening his muscles and learn- 
ing a trade at the same time. It is not possible to 
estimate the value of that Trade to his Body, and 
to his Manhood. Does he become a Preacher? 
Neither the congregation, nor presbyteries, nor 
synods, nor general assemblies, dictate to his soul 
what it shall believe or not believe : what it shall 
utter or not utter. He can snap his fingers in 
their faces, and go on his way rejoicing — "He 
HAS A TRADE !" A Lawycr — made such by a Ma- 
chine System and a Sheepskin — he can quit with 
honor and go to his trade, when he finds Nature 
did not design him for the profession " of which 
he has the honor to be a member," instead of 
dragging out in it a life of dishonor for the sake of 
bread, as so many do ! A Doctor, instead of kill- 
ing people, could go to protecting their heads, 
feet or backs from the weather provided he and 
3 



5Q CAUSING ANOTHER, WHO IS UNDER 21, 

others found himself not adapted to the "heal- 
ing " art. Every boy should have a trade : every 
girl should have a trade — at 21, when they leave 
School. Such a trade as they can rely upon in 
any emergency during life, with health, to sup- 
port themselves, and others if need be. Now, 
can they not get this trade, perfectly, long before 
they are 21, if they go to school but Three Hours 
a Day, and those Three Hours closing at 12 
o'clock, M. ? — and then working at the trade 
Three Hours more ? 

Again : If there is anything I would send any 
human being to the Penitentiary for, as a sort of 
retribution^ (which does not belong to man,) it 
would be for over-working another human being 
under 21 years of age — or during the time of 
bodily growth. Who do you see over- work a 
Colt, when he hopes to make of him a " hundred 
and fifty dollar horse" ? — or a " five hundred dol- 
lar horse" 7 You see no one do this. But is not 
a child, all developed and all finished up nice 
according to the simple directions of Nature, worth 
more than $150 or $500? The negroes at the 
South — where, with infinite sorrow be it said that 
the "image" of God is still bought and sold — 
average the largest figure. Oh, it is wicked — ter- 
ribly wicked — ^to overwork their forming, grow- 
ing, and comparatively tender, muscles! They 



TO OVERWORK, A PENITENTIARY OFFENCE. 51 

sliould never work to fatigue. But active, lively 
work they need j and if you will follow Nature, 
so far as I have stated — and also follow it in treat- 
ing children with exactly the same degree of Respect 
you wish or expect or exact from them — they will 
desire to do this work. You treat them as an in- 
ferior order of beings, and they must treat you 
accordingly, for so are the Laws. Everything will 
then of course be at " heads and points" — ^in other 
words, off the track. But observe all these things j 
and the Child over ten, or the Youth, will work 
good and smart — as cheerfully as the lark — for 
Three Hours a Day, and that is all he is capable 
of working, as a steady thing, without trespassing 
on the energy needed for growth. Extra occa- 
sions may furnish exceptions ; but here you must 
tread with care. I am speaking of active work, 
of course — that which will harden and enlarge 
the muscles. If it be sedentary, the Three Hours 
is of course too much. Let him have 2 hours, 
and the balance for active work or " play." Let 
the Girl learn every item of Housewifery by doing 
every item over and over again ; let her learn how 
to make her owm garments, and the cloth garments 
of any member of the family : let her learn the 
trade she prefers : then, with health, she is inde- 
pendent for life, and you have not twisted her 
spine and ruined her constitution by over-school- 



53 HABITS OF MANUAL LABOR. HABITS 

ing. Do thus, and at 21 years of age, they will 
leave school with a sense of Responsibility to 
themselves and others, and with the ability to 
meet it. Then would there be less mourning over 
profligate Sons, trying to cheat a living out of 
the world by their Avits. And, moreover, the 
habit of cheerful Manual Labor ^ formed during 
the period of bodily growth, is one of the founda- 
tions of happiness and of character j which no 
Man or Woman can afford to do without. 



35. Under the present School System, it is all 
Study and no Work. By an equality of reason- 
ing, after School is over, for life, it is all Work 
and no Study. And so it is. 



36. It is a wretched Education, that which has 
the child and youth live for himself. But how 
can it be otherwise, under the Six Hours or Two 
Sessions a Day System 1 Bo they not necessarily 
live wholly for themselves ? The only way to learn 
to live for others, is to do for others. And thus, 
you lay the foundation for whatever of real hap- 
piness your child can enjoy : And to lay that foun- 
dation, Three Hours School a Day affords you 
opportunity. 

37. Habits formed in childhood and youth, 



FORMED IN YOUTH. HOME EDUCATION. 53 

have far greater tenacity than habits formed later 
in life. Why ? Because, in Childhood, impulse, 
or the Instinctive or Involuntary faculties, control. 
These faculties, feel. They supply all the mental 
feeling. Hence, habits, at that period, become 
inwrought in the very existence and action of 
these faculties: become a part of themselves. 
Naturally, and with more or less pleasure, the 
man or woman follows them, if the habit was 
rendered pleasant to childhood and youth by be- 
ing the offspring of Voluntary effort. But with 
the habits formed after maturity, it is different. 
They, are more or mainly the offspring of the In- 
tellectual faculties, which do not feel. Perhaps 
some parents and boys and girls, will see in this, 
the wisdom of Habits of Manual Labor during 
bodily growth, to say nothing of its indispensable 
value to the Constitution. 



38. Three Hours a Day, would work a beau- 
tiful revolution in many a domestic circle. It 
would introduce the era of Home Education. If 
I Avere compelled to name some one thing, as the 
thing most needed in American social and domes- 
tic arrangements, it would be this. When we con- 
sider the almost total want of sympathy and prac- 
tical co-operation between parent and child in 
reference to the business of the School, the mere 



54 BEAUTY OF HOME EDUCATION. 

statement of this proposition carries with it con- 
viction of its importance. JYo children now study 
at home, save those who, at School, study too much. 
Give them Three Hours per day at School, and 
the business there would be delightful and attract- 
ive. The mind of the child would involuntarily 
revert to the business of the next day, and mo- 
ments would be snatched — as rest or recreation, 
as a change from other occupations — to look into 
the subjects on hand for the next succeeding 
school hours. Parents could point them to men 
or women of whom they could get a fact or a 
truth. Insensibly, the interest of parents would 
be excited, either by enquiries on their part or on 
the part of the child, to ascertain that which either 
did or did not know ; — and here would be a Home 
School, blending in delightful harmony the deep 
and warm interest and experience, developed 
mind, and may be scientific knowledge of the 
parent, with the active and searching curiosity, 
confidence, simplicity, sprightliness and affection 
of the child. Who can estimate the reciprocal 
influence, upon parents and children, exercised 
by such a picture in a large and rapidly increas- 
ing proportion of the Homes of the State of New- 
York 1 

Another consideration I must present. One 
feature of our School policy is founded in a grand, 



ALL THE SCHOOLING IS NOW DONEj BEFORE 55 

and, to a serious extent, fatal error. It is the des- 
tiny, as it ever will be, of the large majority of 
those who fill our Public Schools, to earn their 
living by manual labor. The System has been, 
and now is, to press school attendance, and '^ finish 
the Education " of the child — as this steam pro- 
cess is so aptly termed — before the period at which 
the learning of a trade^ or entering on the practical 
vocation of lifcy is commenced. Instead of that, 
school attendance, where practicable — and it 
ought to be made so, in all cases — should be con- 
tinued to 21 years of age. On the Plan now pur- 
sued, this cannot be. But there are strong rea- 
sons why this should be so, one or two of which 
I will mention. The trade or business of life, 
should be learned during the period of school 
attendance. The ripened judgment; the wants 
discovered by practical experience and observa- 
tion in regard to the business and social require- 
ments of life ; and the more distinctive develop- 
ment of peculiar mental capacities and tastes 
during the later years of school attendance under 
the Three Hours a Day System, would accomplish 
two very important results touching life and labor 
in School. It would bring home, practically, to 
their minds, not only the necessity of knowledge 
in general, but of peculiar kinds of knowledge, 
while they still have abundant facilities for its at- 



56 THE SCHOLAR KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS. 

tainment. This Avould make the value they set on 
knowledge, at this period, double that during the 
earlier, inexperienced and careless years, at school. 
They also learn, by experience, before leaving 
school, much of the value of intellectual disci- 
pline. A young man at a trade, could attend the 
school three hours in a day, and, by pursuing one 
STUDY — instead of half a dozen, more or less, as 
is now so much the fashion — with the moments he 
would catch at it, and the thought he could be- 
stow on it, out of school, would become master of 
it in a term. If not, in two : if not in two, in 
three. And so on. He could thus attend two 
terms every year from 15 to 21 ; support himself 
by his labor ; and learn the trade which is his 
capital for life — a trade the better learned for this 
course of procedure. So that at 21, the Young 
Man will not only have a better Education, than 
under the present System, but will be a more en- 
lightened and skillful workman. 

The same would be true of young women, who 
would thus have abundant time to render service 
in the household. And while, with true filial 
love, repaying the kindness of parents by cheer- 
ful aid in return, she could store her mind with 
the kinds of learning and knowledge discovered 
by intercourse with society and with good news- 
papers, to be not only desirable but indispensable ; 



STUDY, AND OTHER BUSINESS OF LIFE, 57 

and thus leave School, in a reasonable measure 
fitted to adorn, by a proper discharge of its duties, 
the beautiful and responsible trust of an American 
Matron. 



39. Another benefit. Silently and insensibly 
another important result follows from the proposed 
change. Since Universal Education has been in 
vogue, in words it has been deprecated by every 
one whose pen has touched the subject, that study 
and the " pursuit of knowledge" cease when final 
leave is taken of the School Room. But by thus 
enabling scholars to attend till they are 21 years 
of age, systematic pursuit of knowledge and prac- 
tical devotion to the labors of life would be com- 
bined; this combination would become a habit; 
and by this most powerful of human instrumen- 
talities, become inwrought in the very texture of 
their existence. Jind^ moreover ^ the capacity of 
acquisition during the later period of school attend- 
ancCj on this plan, is far greater than it is during 
the earlier J or the period to which the attendance of 
the great mass is now wholly confined. This, with 
the increased value set on knowledge, would often 
make the amount of acquisition from 18 to 21 
years of age, equal to, if not even greater, than 
that for the prior school period. Experimentally, 
the testimony on this point is all on one side— and 
3* 



58 COMBINED BY THREE HOURS SCHOOL A DAY. 

pliilosopliy corresponds. The practical, every day 
advantages of varied knowledge in the transaction 
of business, and in the intercourse or courtesies 
of life, — as a pecuniary benefit, solely, leaving 
out of view the sources of gratification and pride 
it affords in reference to individual position and 
happiness — cannot be realized by the scholar till 
after the hour when the pursuit for life is now 
selected and engaged in. For instance, who feels 
the value of being able, without hesitation, to sit 
down and communicate, in clear and free and 
unequivocal phrase, on paper, all the Avishes and 
thoughts which business or friendship, taste or 
profit, joy or sorrow, prosperity or adversity, affec- 
tion or obligation, lead him or her to wish to 
express to another, save the one who has had the 
occasion, and found himself or herself unable to 
meet it in a proper manner 1 This necessity would 
usually arise before 21 years of age, and would 
therefore be provided for before quitting school. 
And so on through the varied exigencies of busi- 
ness and social life. " Necessity is the mother of 
invention": but not less truly, the mother of 
provision. 

40. It is not to be denied, that one of the most 
fatal, stupid, and consummate follies of our pres- 
ent School System, is, that the scholar is regarded 



TEACHERS WHO NEVER "PRESUME THE 59 

as a machine, to be worked by the Teacher by 
hand, or horse, or steam power, as the case may be. 
At all hazards, the modern and "model" (!) idea 
— (see modern School "Classification") — is, that 
the scholar is not to say what he will study at 
School, and what he will not study. Oh, no ; the 
scholar is a mere outsider, and the puissant 
Teacher — the all-knowing Teacher — the "End 
of Wisdom" — ^is "wiser than the instincts" im- 
planted by God. I mean by this, precisely those 
Teachers, (so-called) by whom the people, in- 
cluding scholars, are never " presumed to know 
anything." The same Teacher will go home with 
the boy to "board" ; and if at dinner, there was 
tripe and beef, and the boy had a repugnance to 
tripe and preferred the beef, and the father com- 
pelled the boy to eat the tripe, that same teacher 
would set down the father, as an ignorant, unfeel- 
ing, tyrannical man : altogether unfit to be placed 
in charge of any portion of the training of a 
Child or Youth ! It will be a " good time" for the 
children and youth, when all the Teachers in the 
Public Schools of New- York, not only know that 
the mind is governed by fixed laws, but also know 
those laws. If that Revolution could be at once 
accomplished — could take full effect in the winter 
of 1854-5- — it is hardly extravagant language to 
say, that the change would be regarded by the 



60 PEOPLE KNOW ANYTHING." THE SAME 

Scholars as one from hell to heaven. The change 
will not be so sudden, hut it is to be made. As 
soon as the State shakes off' the nightmare incubus 
of its connection with Colleges and Academies, 
we shall see light breaking in upon the glorious 
Colleges of the People ! 



41. The Human System cannot endure as much 
intellectual labor ^ in a day^ or in a certain number of 
months^ before growth is completed^ as it can after. 
The growth of the body creates a special demand 
on the Electric or Nervous power: that power 
which is exhausted by intellectual labor. When 
growth of the body is completed, this special or 
extraordinary demand on the Electric or Nervous 
power, no longer exists. At all periods of life, 
however, the first and highest demand on this 
Electric poAver or energy, is to meet the wants of 
the Body. After they have been met, then, and 
not till then, intellectual labor finds a proper 
place: For physical power is the foundation of 
all. Then, intellectual labor adds to the vigor, 
development, symmetry and beauty of the body. 
From all this^ it follows^ that more of the Electric 
or Jfervous energy can be devoted to intellectual 
labor after growth is completed^ than before it is 
completed. And it follows, that it is contrary to 
the natural laws, for the same degree of physical 



STRENGTH, BEFORE 21, MUST NOT DO THE 61 

and intellectual power, to perform as much in- 
tellectual or manual work, in a day, before matu- 
rity of growth, as the same power may properly 
perform after it. 

42. The physical requirements of the human system^ 
are every -day requirements. They are. Exercise 
at the proper time — Rest at the proper time — 
exercise and rest of the proper kind and quantity — 
pure air, in the direct light of the sun — these are 
all every day needs. They are not to be put off 
for five days in the week, and made up during 
tlie other two : nor during term time and made 
up at vacation : nor during childhood and youtli, 
and made up after the school has been left. What 
is lost, is lost forever. It is exercise in the open air 
that completes digestion^ and can alone perfect it. 
I repeat, it can not be perfected without it. I 
have shown at about what time that sliould be 
taken : after the first stages are thoroughly per- 
formed. Without it, the blood is not propelled 
with proper impetus through every fibre of the 
system ; and without that, it can not properly 
perform its office in detaching dead matter from 
the solids of the body, and replacing them with 
new. Without it, the blood is not forced in 
sufficient volume through the lungs, and conse- 
quently not sufficient Oxygen and Electricity are 



62 WORK OF THE SAME STRENGTH, AFTER 21. 

taken on by the blood from the air to make it 
pure and fit to perform its functions with vigor, 
and to supply the requisite "nervous energy." 
Paramount and absolutely imperative as are these 
necessities to the integrity of the human economy, 
it is not to be forgotten that they are every-day 
necessities. Six Hours School a Day, puts a Veto 
on the possibility of meeting them. 



43. Children ?7iM5/ be Active. They must be ac- 
tive in that which interests them. Else, they are 
slaves. Now they can not be interested in stay- 
ing in a School Room and studying, or attempting 
to study. Text books, six hours in a day ; and in 
reciting, or attempting to recite, from them. 
What is there in them or that^ to interest the little 
fellows, as the sole business of their lives and 
not as a change or variety ? You may tell them 
— as is so much the custom — that " severe appli- 
cation will make them great men. Lawyers, 
Judges, Governors, Presidents," &c., &c. ; but 
what care they for all that ? You might as well 
attempt to amuse a hungry man by telling him 
that at four days' travel, he will find roast beef. 
What are all these things to them, compared with 
the joyous sports of to-day, in which the imperi- 
ous Voice of Nature commands them to engage ? 
What are tliey, compared with the luxury of 



CHILDREN GOVERNED BY SAME LAWS. 63 

learning new things^ as herein insisted upon ? — 
and which, out of School, they can learn. The 
two latter they /ee/; the other they do not, and 
can not, feel. And moreover, to live truly in and 
to the Presentj is always the best possible prep- 
aration for the Future. 



44. Again : Fidelity to Mature must secure the 
highest interest of children^ unless the Author of 
Mature has erred. Children are neither Slaves nor 
Things. Yet a large proportion of our School 
Regulations and Management, would seem to 
spring from the idea that children of school age, 
are either the one or the other. Yet are they not 
governed by the same laws — physical and mental 
— as " children of a larger growth"? If we are to 
secure their highest good, those laws in all that 
children do, and do not do, must be observed. 
And one of those Laws, is, that interest in a thing 
is the harbinger of success in its 'pursuit. The child 
must be interested in what he does. Everybody 
knows, that, with grown up children, this is essen- 
tial to success. Our folly in regard to childhood 
and youth, comes from the notion that they are 
governed by a different set of laws. You can no 
more add to mental power — no more weld know- 
ledge to the tablets of memory — without interest 
in what is done, than you can galvanize a watch 



64 INTEREST, THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

without the use of a powerful electric battery. 
Indeed, this is the work of the scholar, and is not 
the work of the Teacher ; of course, the scholar 
must furnish the power to " grow " and " weld." 
Without interest, all other appliances are dead. 
Interest is the electrical battery of the mind. All 
who succeed in any of the varied enterprises of 
life — all who accomplish great and valuable re- 
sults — are of those, and those only, who take a 
positive interest in what they do : who love the 
work itself, even more than its benefits to them- 
selves. This is true of the human mind, from the 
cradle to the grave. What folly to violate this 
Truth, at the most interesting and important 
period of human existence — the impressible period 
of formation ! 



45. If I were in general and SAveeping phrase 
to sum up the grand result of the present system 
of School Education, I would say, it was to dis- 
gust the whole people with the acquisition of 
knowledge. Look abroad, over the whole land, 
and of the millions who have left school, how 
many make the acquisition of knowledge their 
solace or delight, as it might be, next to that 
afforded by the social and domestic affections ? — 
and which affections its pursuit is so fitted to en 
liven, perpetuate and adorn ? I ask no better test 



PUBLISHING THE LAW OF ACTIVITY. 65 

of the positive falsehood of the entire School Sys- 
tem of the nation. 



46. It is no matter how often it is repeated, 
that the nature of childhood — and by Childhood, 
in this connection, I mean the period before growth 
ceases — demands Activity. This truth, when 
appreciated and understood, exposes much — very 
much — of the folly and the curse of the Quack or 
Steam System of Education. We pin little inno- 
cents of four, five, six or seven years of age to a 
bench or chair ; they breathe impure air into their 
delicate lungs, vitiating and rendering heavy the 
currents of the blood at a period of intense vital- 
ity, in order that they may, three or four times a 
day, say over " A, B, C," and spell " Baker, 
Briar," &c. ; and at the same time we prate of 
Science, Progress and Civilization! — not forget- 
ting frequently to notify the world that we are 
the " smartest nation in all creation !" So long 
as this outrage on Nature is perpetrated in the 
State of New-York, anywhere — as now it is all 
over it — ^the commandment touching the Law of 
Activity, should be : — " Therefore shall ye lay 
" up these my words in your heart and in your soul, 
" and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that 
" they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And 
"ye shall teach them your children, speaking of 



66 can't study six hours a day. 

" tliem when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
" thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, 
" and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write 
" them upon the door posts of thine house, and 
" upon thy gates : That your days may be multi- 
" plied, and the days of your children.^^ 



47. This law agreed on, what next? It is 
equally true, that activity can not be manifested 
in the duties of the School Room for Six Hours a 
Day. You can neitlier coax nor whip this out of 
a large majority of its inmates. Nature rebels 
and asserts her rights, and what is more, vindicates 
them ; as here, for once, children of a smaller, are 
too much for the " children of a larger growth." 
They can and do get the victory, despite the ferule 
and the birch. The endless series of pains and 
penalties inflicted, not for sinning, but because 
they won't sin, — not because they disobey laws 
written by the finger of God, but because they 
will not and can not do it — are all in vain. And 
so it will be to the end of time. My position is 
therefore not too broad, nor my language too 
strong, when I say that " Six hours a day 0/ acti- 
vity in the duties of the School Room, can not be 
HAD." The quantity is not there, and therefore 
you can't get it. There are scholars who are ex- 
ceptions. But to them it is death. They early 



TO THOSE WHO WILL, IT IS DEATH. 67 

furnisb. food for worms , for plaintive verses, and 
far more plaintive wails. If they survive, and 
reach what by way of complaisant burlesque is 
called maturity^ the ordeal through wdiich they 
have passed has proved forever fatal to the integ- 
rity of their constitutions. 



48. This Truth, that there can be no integrity 
of body without integrity of mind, and no integ- 
rity of mind without integrity of body, ought to 
be burned in the palms of the hands of both young 
and old. 



49. Our Schools, then, present this anomaly: 
With one hand we over-insist on this great natural 
law of Activity, and with the other castigate for 
obedience to it. We send the Teacher into the 
School to require the scholars to do what can't be 
done, and give him full license to whip them if 
they DO anything else. This is not a burlesque 
on the work we actually impose on the Teacher, 
under the present Six Hours a Day System. The 
children must he active: they can not be active on 
what you set them at, any more than they can 
stand on one leg for that length of time. Does it not 
therefore quite necessarily follow, that they will 
be active at something else 1 And it so happens, 
that for this obedience to the irreversible laws 



68 OBJECTION : " IT WILL TAKE LONGER TO 

of Nature, the children are frowned on, ridiculed, 
scolded, cuffed, thumped, yelled at with frightful, 
chilling yells, whipped, or worse than all, threat- 
ened, lied to, or frightened. Here, the " children 
of a larger growth" carry the day, and achieve 
substantially, or ostensibly, a victory ; crowning 
their immortal brows with a fadeless wreath, in 
which the leaves of Stolidity and Cruelty are 
very evenly intertwined. 

Go, study Phrenology and Electricity ! 



50. But there arise objections to this Plan. 

Objection First: On broaching this subject to 
an intelligent gentleman — though never practi- 
cally connected with School Education, as a 
Teacher, after a few moment's thought, his first 
remark was — " It will take much longer to get 
a School Education than it does now." " Not so 
long," was my reply. 

If what has already been said be true, two 
things follow : First, that greater progress will be 
made in the business of School Education, in a 
given number of years, under Three Hours a Bay. 
And, Secondly, that if less, then less should be 
accomplished : because the Change proposed is in 
harmony with the natural laws, while the present 
System is in violation of them. 

If the Premises herein set forth be not true, 



GET SCHOOL EDUCATION." EACH HOUR OF 69 

then of course the Conclusions fall with them. 
And if not true, that will be shown, and thus the 
Truth be established. 

There is one item I will mention here as wor- 
thy of consideration, especially by those who have 
not bestowed thought upon this subject. In 
passing, I may be allowed to remark, that what- 
ever I have written has been with a view to inter- 
est and awaken the attention of those who have 
thought less on this matter than I have, rather 
than of those who have thought more upon it. 
The item is this : Every hour spent in the 
School Room, not employed in active, earnest 
WORK at the business of the place — Work, 
as earnest, resolute, absorbed and zealous, as 
the usual devotion to Play — I say, every hour 
in school not so employed, is a drawback on the 
value of the hours properly spent there. I believe 
this must be true. Others will give it thought, 
and determine for themselves. The time not 
occupied in active and earnest School Labor, 
hangs heavily and irksomely on the scholar. It 
serves to beget in his mind positive disgust and 
contempt for the whole business. And it will 
not be overlooked, that it is the painful, not the 
pleasant things of life, which make the deepest 
and most lasting impressions. 

Six Hours a Day are spent in school. Three 



70 IDLENESS, IN SCHOOL, NEUTRALIZES AN 

of them in work — three not. The adverse influ- 
ence on the mind, of the Three not devoted to study, 
make the other three of not more value certainly 
than two hours of work would be, provided the 
school were dismissed at their close. I am led 
from observation to the conclusion, that, take all 
the children of the State who attend the Public 
Schools, who are eight years of age and upwards, 
and not to exceed One Quarter of the Six Hours per 
day in the School^ is devoted to Work. I take city 
and country — of country I know the most. This 
estimate may seem small ; but I give it, because 
a full investigation has forced me to it. It is 
much smaller than my estimate was when I first 
gave particular attention, some three years ago, 
to this point ; and I beg those who question it, to 
give to it some investigation^ and some thought ^ for 
a year or two, before they determine to reject it. 
They will be likely to find a change in their first 
impressions on the subject, as I have done. By 
the business of a School, I mean Work. I do not 
mean " a name to " work, a form of work, but 
WORK. And this is almost banished from the 
School Room, by compelling the scholars to drag 
out a lingering Six Hours a Day there. Real 
Work, is almost a stranger to the School Room. 
So that during no portion of the time, is there 
manifested that intensified energy which is the 



HOUR OF WORK. OBJECTION : " CANNOT 71 

soul and essence of intellectual labor and pro- 
gress. By attempting overwork, we have no real 
work. 

Therefore, in view of these considerations and 
of the premises — while it would be no objection, if 
true — it is not true, that under the operation of 
the Plan of Three Hours a Day " It would take 
longer to get a School Education." 



51 . Objection Second : "But you can not make the 
children study out of School," says another intel- 
ligent gentleman to me. " And you can not 
make them study in School," I replied ; " So there 
we are even ; and admitting your objection to be 
valid, the only question it leaves is this : Shall we 
provide them facilities for pure air and exercise, 
at the proper time, or, by confining them the ad- 
ditional three hours, deny it to them?" 

But the objection is not conceded, in its breadth, 
by any means. It is true, that you can now with 
great diflS-culty make — for " make " is the patent 
word^children study out of school hours. And 
this is not a light curse of the present System. 
By its operation, it becomes inwrought into the 
very growth of the child, that Study, in this life, 
is to be done only in a School House. That Edu- 
cation comes alone from the School Eoom. There 
are two good reasons why now they will not study 



72 MAKE CHILDREN STUDY OUT OF SCHOOL." 

out of school hours. They are wearied with 
attendance. And hence, neither the School Room, 
nor any thing done tliere, is an attraction. It is 
not a place to which they are eager to go — and 
hence, why should they be eager to prepare for 
it 1 But make the School Room an attraction ; 
make the children look forward with delight to 
the hour of recreation, when they are to meet the 
pleasant face of the teacher, and listen to his or 
her cheerful voice, and to meet their eager and 
attentive and joyful companions, all inviting the 
scholar to high and cheerful effort, as a pleasure ; 
I say, when this total revolution is accomplished — 
as if cannot be till Three Hours a Day are substi- 
tuted for Six— then we shall not ^^make" the 
children study out of school, but they will, at odd 
minutes or hours, take a look at their books in 
order to be prepared to act well their part at 
School. There can be but little doubt about 
this. There can be no doubt they would study 
all their welfare would allow. 

Moreover, children possess self-respect and pride 
of character. I speak not of infants, but of those 
old enough to go to school. Motives to action 
must be intrinsic — must be felt. The long and 
short of the thing lies just here : This Reform will 
make the school pleasant to both Teacher and 
Children. When the two parties to an enterprise 



LABOR, NOT ATTRACTIVE, IS USELESS. 73 

eel pleasantly, there is a law of affinity by which 
they will find it out, and become pleased with 
each other. The children will — ^because they 
must — engage, with the irrepressible ardor of their 
natures, in that which is pleasant to them. Who 
can doubt this? — who does not know it? — for who 
has not been a child and youth ? Then we have 
only to decide the point, as to whether the thing 
be pleasant or unpleasant to scholars, to know 
what they will do, and what they will not do. 

There are, it is true, men stupid enough to be- 
lieve that school time or labor can by possibility 
be of real benefit, if not made attractive, pleasant 
and desirable to the scholar. But the time of all 
such, ought to have been considered past, on the 
advent of the steam-engine : much more, on the 
accession of the Electric Telegraph. Such men, 
with regret be it said, are to be found among 
teachers, even in our day, and among others 
unfortunately exercising control over the direc- 
tion of school education. It is simply because 
they are as ignorant of the laws of mind, as are 
the children themselves. Such, do not even 
dream that the mind is governed by laws at all : 
and least of all, that a scholar is anything more 
than a thing, a " nose of wax," in the hands of 
the teacher. For it does not follow, that because 
a man has charge of a school, of any grade or 
4 



74 INTEREST, IS THE MENTAL BATTERY. 

name, that he knows the first elements of the 
Laws of Mind ; or even the truth, that with refer- 
ence to mind the same thing done will produce 
the same results, in all ages, with a certainty as 
unerring as the movements of the planets. One 
of the Laws of Mind, is, that it gathers strength 
from voluntary exercise. Voluntary effort is but 
another name for cheerful effort. Such effort, 
adds to mental power. And then, as to that 
Knowledge which is gained solely by the exercise 
of Memory. If you drive the child up the 
thorny hill of knowledge, instead of leading it 
along a pleasant path strewed with flowers, he or 
she will commit lessons and repeat them to you, 
but they will be as letters traced on the sand : 
look there the next day, and they are gone. You 
have not, by the battery of interest, galvanized it to 
the mind. But let the opposite be true, and truths 
or facts are fastened to the mind of the child, as 
is the gilding to the case of a galvanized watch. 
Why? Interest, is the Mental Battery which 
galvanizes knowledge to the mind, making the two 
" one and inseparable, now and forever." 

One word further, in reference to this Objection. 
A scholar who would not look at his or her books, 
out of school, at intervals, under the System of 
Three Hours School a Day, as a relaxation from 
play or labor, would not study at School during 



PREPARATION, IS BY DOING AS WE 75 

the three additional hours now imposed. But if 
kept in, and attention to books compelled^ for Three 
Hours after he became weary and tired of staying, 
the consequence must inevitably be, as has been 
already so often stated, to inspire inextinguishable 
dislike for the whole business, and for the Teacher 
as a tormentor. And it is Nature, as it came from 
the hand of God, to dislike tormentors, and to be 
unhappy in their presence, especially when they 
are endowed with brute power, which we know 
they regard it as " God service" to use over our 
backs and heads. 

The true idea, it appears to me, is to make the 
acquisition of knowledge, and the exercise and 
training of the mind, a pleasure, a relaxation, and 
not a wearisome toil : to make the labor a delight 
— so that this temper may never flag, but go on 
augmenting the stores of knowledge and mental 
power by delightful recreation, with every depart- 
ing year, to the close of life. We thus make 
school-life what it professes to be, really a prep- 
aration for future life, by having the children do 
as they are to do. We now, during their School 
Life, make them do as they are never to do again. 
Preparation to do consists in doing, not in saying : 
in action, not in words or forms. Everybody 
understands, that the way to learn to make a boot 
is to make a boot. Is it not as obvious, that the 



76 ARE TO DO : NOT IN WORDS OR FORMS. 

way to learn to live, is so to live 1 And how will 
the Six Hours a Day of the present School System 
stand this test ? Does it make the present a type 
of future life ? No j it makes of it precisely the 
reverse. 

— I will now notice but these two specific 
Objections to Three Hours School a Day. 



52. There is no Philosophical or Natural basis 
for our Public School Education, in or out of the 
State Normal School. Words, not Things; Liter- 
ature, not Science ; the Works of Man, and not 
the Works of God, everywhere have the supremacy. 
It is the same in Academies, Colleges and Univer- 
sities ; but I am not now dealing with them. 

Scholars should learn more of tfee Natural Laws 
— of Facts in Nature — of Drawing and of Music — 
before they now read with facility, than one in a 
thousand of the entire population of JVew- York, has 
ever learned. And after they can so read, they 
should go on in the same way. These would be 
the elements of the Science of Farming, of Mechan- 
ics, and of Housewifery ; for it is well to make a 
note now, that soon, no Woman will be looked 
on as Educated, who does not understand the 
Science of Housewifery. And these scholars will 
learn all this with delight ; and other things being 
in harmony, it will make their school life a life of 



SCHOOL EDUCATION, IS NOT NOW 77 

pleasure, and not as now, measureably a burden. 
The child, from the hour it can creep till ten or 
twelve years of age, is all alive for Things. 
Children want to know all about Events. They 
will walk, run, look, listen, ask, till so tired they 
must go to sleep, to know all about Things. As 
the thirsty dog laps water, so does the mind of 
childhood seem to devour facts, things — not 
WORDS, or ideas disconnected from facts. During 
the period I have named, they are all eyes and 
ears. Do we, then, regard Nature, in our System 
of School Education 1 — or does it seem to have 
been got up on the idea that Nature is a hum- 
bug 1 — one grand error, on the part of its Author 1 
Our System of School Education, is in the teeth 
of Nature. Tell the little fellows of Things — of 
Facts — of Events — that so is so, and that so makes 
so — and how their eyes will sparkle and glisten ! 
They want to know all about Things. They don't 
want to know about the Word — ^till after they 
know about ttie Thing. Words are but the 
shadow or sign of Things : we teach the shadow 
first, and the substance afterwards, or perhaps do 
not teach it at all. 

Universal Observation testifies that children are 
fond of learning about Things, and are not fond 
of learning about Words, from books — except, as 
they find out that the word is a sign of a Thing 



78 COPIED FROM NATURE. NEARLY ALL THE 

they already know about. iBut why is it so ? The 
child is born with thirty-five to forty Mental Fac- 
ulties, more or less, each of which is manifested 
through its particular portion of the brain. Each 
of these Faculties is distinct, independent, Primi- 
tive. Each does its own work. Each is alive 
and wide-awake for action. This is true of all 
the faculties, save one or two. Now, all but two 
of the Faculties of the human mind, are Instinct- 
ive or Involuntary. Those two are Comparison 
and Causality — the two Reasoning Faculties. 
Now this little army of Faculties of the Child, are 
not only wide-awake, each for its own impressions, 
but they are ignorant — ^have everything to learn. 
Don't they go out and see Things 1 Don't they 
see Things, everywhere 1 Don't they see Things 
are of different kinds and qualities : differing in 
color, size, height, width, weight : that one is hot 
and another cold, one wet and another dry, one 
hard and another soft ? Don't they see all this ? 
Is it not with them all see 1 In a word, they re- 
ceive impressions from every thing. And then 
from the ignorance and the natural activity of the 
faculties, combined, don't they want to know all 
about it? But do they see Words anywhere? 
Do they become interested in Words 1 Do they 
enquire about the qualities of Words '? Do they 
want to know all about Words ? — where they 



FACULTIES, INSTINCTIVE. WHY DO CHILDHEN 79 

came from'? how old they are? — who made 
them? — ^whether they will bite? — -&c.j Stc, &c. 1 
Not a bit of it ! Such is the why of Childhood's 
taking to Things, and taking no interest in Words — 
except, when they stand for Things already known. 
And be it noted, that, by thus following Nature, 
children will take an interest in Words : and words 
will be mastered with one-quarter of the time and 
labor now bestowed. 

Now, if these things be so, what shall be said of 
the mode of School Education in vogue in the 
State of New-York? 

— Oh! but how can the child learn anything, 
unless he knows how to read ? How can he study 
the Text Books? Text Books, in general, for 
children, to the dogs ! What business, for instance, 
has any teacher who has a tongue, and has ever 
heard of blackboard and chalk, of slate and 
pencil, to have an Arithmetic-^ooA: in a School 
Room ? There is no more propriety in it, than in 
furnishing the same lad with a Book when you 
propose to learn him how to mik a cow. The 
reason why no Arithmetic is learned in the Schools, 
is that Arithmetic-Books are there. Banish the 
Books, and if the scholars do anything, they will 
be compelled to understand what they do. It will 
be their Arithmetic that they know, then. In all 
the early stages of the Science of Man — which 



80 TAKE TO THINGS AND EVENTS, NOT TO WORDS 1 

should be the first lesson ever taught in School — 
you want no book ; but you want a head with all 
the Faculties mapped (not printed) on it, and set 
them to drawing at the Blackboard or with their 
slates. Give them one idea^ or truthj or facty for 
one lesson, and let them work that out. You can 
have them learn Words by writing down what you 
say: if they can't do it, yet, assist them : write it 
on the Blackboard, after they have tried, and let 
them copy. No Grammar-Book should be in 
School, till grammar has been learned. The same 
again. Begin with the beginning, and one thing 
at a time. You will be compelled to tell them 
Avhat it is, and why it is, and to answer questions 
they may ask. Of course. Grammar is not touched 
before 15 or 16 years of age — when the Scholar 
begins to have a knowledge of words, and of 
ideas. And of course, it will be seen that by this 
System, Things and Words go on together: as the 
shadow follows the substance ; and that, while the 
mind is eagerly storing up Facts, and Principles 
that belong to the Facts, it it making double the 
progress in Words that it does under the present 
System. 

I need not say, that, where the study involves 
only Facts and Memor}^, text books are of course 
indispensable. 

— If these things be so, we see the nonsense 



god's truths, in his works, all simple. 81 

of all this talk about the '' Hill of Science," with 
its briery, thorny pathway, up which we are to go, 
barefooted and bleeding, if we ever go up at all. 
And while we are told, that all who get up, do so 
at the cost of torn, worn, and weary forms, we 
have the still further, and, if possible, more per- 
nicious nonsense, that but few can make the as- 
cent at all ! A more absurd blasphemy of the 
All-Wise and All-Good, was never uttered. What ! 
His Laws — for the every day guidance, and 
every day happiness, of all — difficult to attain ! 
Making the Beneficent Father, like the Roman 
Emperor who stuck up statutes out of reach of 
the hands and eyes of the people, and then took 
their heads off when they failed to obey them! 
Our God is not such a God. He is a Being, In- 
finite, as full of Love as of Wisdom. The Laws 
written on all His Works, are mavelously simple ; 
adapted precisely to the comprehension of the 
common mind. " The common people heard Him 
gladly." It is Error, which is so hard to under- 
stand ; the miserable conceits and speculations of 
man, labeled "Philosophy" — not Philosophy it- 
self, for all Philosophy is of Divine origin. Sim- 
plicity is the seal of Divinity. Philosophy, is but 
a statement of Laws the Deity has written on his 
Works. This stuff about the "Hill of Science," 

is therefore all humbug — moonshine. Under its 

4-* 



82 SCIENCEj IS A LOVELY PLAIN. 

withering blight the masses are to be kept no 
longer, as the tools of demagogues, and as food 
for sharpers. Science, is a beautiful and lovely 
plain, with just enough of undulation to make 
the prospect fine, and the route easy and delight- 
ful to travel. Not a Law has the Creator estab- 
lished, that is not beautiful : not a law, but its in- 
vestigation gives pleasure to the human mind. It 
is human trash — substituted for the laws of the 
Great Supreme, and palmed oif for them, under 
the names of Science, PHiLosopHy, &c., which is 
hard to understand, and is irksome. The same 
Being who made the Mind of Man, made all the 
Laws of Nature ; and between the two, the adap- 
tation is perfect. But on this point, I am admon- 
ished by my limits that further remark here is 
forbidden. When any mind has learned that the 
Universe, and all that there is in it, are governed 
by Laws, immutable ; and when he has learned 
one of those laws — or, in other words, thus learned 
to know when a thing is proved — that mind, may 
almost be said to be educated — to be trained. 
That mind can then go on alone ; and there is no 
limit to its attainments, save the measure of its 
capacity and power of application. And in this 
way, every true Man and every true Woman, in this 
State, is soon to come to understand the Science of 
Man, and Laws of Nature innumerable ; is to leain 



SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTOn's SYSTEM. 83 

the Science of Ms or her business — for Housewifery 
is a Science; and then, every one who does not so 
understand, will be looked on as one of the un- 
fortunates of the race ; because the profit and hap- 
piness resulting from tkeir labor, must be less than 
that of their neighbors. 

— Now, will someone tell the world, how many, 
of the One Hundred Thousand who annually 
graduate from the Public Schools of the State of 
New- York, accomplish this? An exact census 
would show what our School Education amounts to. 



53. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in a lecture, 
lately, in England, gave the following: — "Many 
persons seeing me so much engaged in active life, 
and as much about the world as if I had never 
been a student, have said to me, ' When do you 
get the time to write all your books ? How on 
earth do you contrive to do so much work V I 
shall perhaps surprise you by the answer I make. 
The answer is this : I contrive to do so much at 
a time. A man, to get through work well, must 
not overwork himself — for, if he do too much to- 
day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will 
be obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since 
I begun really and earnestly to study, which was 
not till I had left college and was actually in the 
world, I may, perhaps, say, that I have gone 



84 WHICH FUNCTIONS SHOULD PREDOMINATE '? 

through as large a course of general reading as 
most men of my time. I have traveled much — I 
have mixed much in politics and in various busi- 
ness of life, and in addition to all this, I have 
published somewhere about sixty volumes, some 
upon subjects requiring much special research. 
And what time do you think, as a general rule, I 
have devoted to study — to reading and writing ] 
Not more than three hours a day ; and when Par- 
liament is sitting, not always that. But then, 
during those hours I have given my whole atten- 
tion to what I was about." 



5 i. It is my opinion, if what I have already sug- 
gested was carried out, that, before 21, the aver- 
age of the whole number of scholars would ac- 
complish, in Mind and Body, double what they 
now do. Besides knowing four times as much — 
having a body worth four times as much — and 
being altogether four times as much of men and 
women. — - • 

55. Which is best, at eight years of age — to have 
the child so that he can play smartly for two 
hours, and not get fatigued, or so that he can read 
smartly to your "admiring" guests, and "tell all 
the big words" ? 

56. Should the Vital, or Building Up func- 
tions of the Constitution, or the Working func- 



GREAT MEN SELDOM GREAT AT SCHOOL. 85 

tionSj predominate^ while the Body is growing] 
The reader will please to answer this question. 
It is a grand point to start from. Which should 
PREDOMINATE wMU the Body is growing 1 



57. In a great many cases, the men who with 
giant force have lifted mankind a notch above 
their existing ignorance and degradation, either 
at 20 had never been in a school to any amount, 
or were undistinguished for expertness in any of 
its performances. And well it might be so. By 
nature, they were powerfully endowed ; the ele- 
ments were well combined in them ; they had a 
powerful constitution; and the energies of their 
nature were devoted to the growth and proper 
knitting together of thaf^ instead of burning that 
up in mental labor from day to day. By this 
course, was the foundation laid for perpetual vigor 
and perpetual youth, if Ave may apply the term 
perpetual to the limited period of manhood. 
Fresh, elastic, and Herculsen were his power?, 
for they were all there. 



58. In discussing this subject with one of the 
most brilliant men who ever graduated from Yale, 
he said that the man who took the highest honors 
out of a class of about 100 the year before he 
graduated, was then preaching within 100 miles 



86 VITALITY, SUPREME DURING GROWTH. 

of that place, (Albany,) at a salary of $400 per 
annum. 

And why was this so? The man must have 
been endowed with a certain breath of intellectual 
power — unless the bestow^al of "honors" was 
fraudulent — or he could not, by any effort, have 
occupied that position on Commencement Day. 
Why, then, was that the last of him 1 It is be- 
cause, from six or eight years of age to the gradua- 
tion probably at 21, the materials so wisely, 
kindly and munificently wrought by Nature to 
give size and firmness to his body, were burnt up 
to supply Mental Energy employed in taking the 
" highest honors" at School with every revolving 
year. The irrepressible energy Nature provided 
to give a round, and full, double-breasted, double- 
chested, double-jointed body, held out during 
its allotted period — the period of growth. It then 
deserted the man. He had provided no adequate 
apparatus for the daily manufacture of Vitality 
for the balance of life ; and, among men who had, 
he dropped like lead in water. 



59. The work of perfecting the Vital must not 
be trampled on during growth. It must not be 
trampled on by overwork of Body, nor by over- 
work of Mind. One day''s overwork while grow- 
ings has ruined thousands. Do just enough every 



PARENTS GOVERN SCHOOL PROGRESS. 87 

day : for, if you have no regard for the future 
welfare of your child, an intelligent regard ibr 
your own pocket — in the matter of loss of time 
and of physicians' bills — should secure him from 
an over day's work, while growing. 



60. Parents may rest assured that School Educa- 
tion in its progress toivards perfection, will keep an 
even pace with the progress of their own knowledge 
in regard to it. State, County or Town Super- 
vision; new twists and kinks in the Statutes; 
Teachers' Institutes, and whatever else may be 
done with a view to the improvement of Teach- 
ers; liberal State appropriations; all are pretty 
much a dead letter so far as they lead beyond the 
existing views of the Parents whose children are 
to be placed in School. Teaching is a commercial, 
a business transaction: it is not a Missionary 
work: hence, demand and supply will govern. 
The quality of Teachers will be what you demand 
that it shall be : no more, no less. If the Parents 
who send their children to the Public Schools of 
New- York, would buy a copy of Combe's Consti- 
tution of Man^ a copy of his Phrenology ^ and learn 
there the foundations of the Science of Educa- 
tion, the Teachers would all learn it, instanter, 
and let College and Normal Professors, and their 
stolid and ignorant sneers, go — where they belong. 



88 " A LITTLE AT A TIME, AND REPEAT." 

This is the whole story. The School Education 
of New- York, will be precisely what the Parents 
of New- York demand : no better, no worse. 



61 . Another of the Natural Laws, is, ^^A little at 
a time, and repeat thatP This is one of the fun- 
damentals. It cannot be put aside with impunity. 
It is but ''little at a time'^ that the Mind can 
digest: but ''little at a time^^ that the mind can 
absorb: but " little at a time^^ that the mind can 
assimilate. The violation of this law, is the rea- 
son why, from all this schooling, scholars learn 
so little : know so little. It is the flaxseed story 
over again. They attempt to take in so much at 
once, that it all slips through their fingers, and 
lo ! their hands are empty ! This is simple fact. 
Look about you, all around you. You will find, 
a month or two months after term is closed, that 
the scholars can tell you scarcely anything of the 
things they went over in term time, and "re- 
cited " to the teacher. Why '] They undertook 
so much, that it went through them undigested : 
they had not the power to assimilate the undigested 
mass, and all was lost. Occasionally, here and 
there, an item might have been digested : that was 
assimilated, and was theirs. J^ow such minhi have 
been the history of everyday. In that case, at the 
end of that term, at the end of the year, at the 



LAW J ILLUSTRATED BY LOWELL MASON. 89 

end of fifty years, it would be there. It would 
be there as long as the mind was unimpaired. 

I once saw this law illustrated in a manner that 
was a picture of living beauty. Lowell Mason 
is the best Teacher I ever knew. Indeed, I never 
knew one with whom he is to be compared. In 
the fall of 1849, he was holding a Musical Con- 
vention at Syracuse ; and on one occasion, gave a 
lesson to the young girls of Miss Bradbury's 
School, to show how Music, in its written expres- 
sion, should be taught to Children, or to begin- 
ners. A class of 30 or 40 was sent, of from 8 to 
12 years of age. They were full of enthusiasm 
for the exercise. It was in the City Hall, and I 
w^as a spectator. He commenced by singing him- 
self the written exercise he intended to teach them 
at that time. Then he explained its principles ; 
but no reference was made to the written charac- 
ters. Then he sung it again and again. Then he 
had them join with him. Then he would tell 
where some of them made mistakes. Then it 
was sung again and again. It was but a few 
notes. Then he turned to the Blackboard, and 
shoAved to them what they had sung, written 
down. He asked them questions in regard to 
what he had already told them. They answered. 
He continued asking questions — explaining it 
all singing every explanation — till that little les- 



90 ABOUT LEARNING A TRADE. 

son was the property of every soul in the class, 
when he said — " There, my little friends, that will 
" do for once : you have gone over all you can re- 
" member, and if we do any more, now, you won't 
" remember anything." The class was then dis- 
missed, with minds active and hungry for more. 



62. I hope no one will infer from what I have 
said in regard to the learning of a Trade during 
school attendance, that I would have boys or 
girls of ten years old or upwards work at it Three 
Hours a Bay, or any hours a day /or every day in 
the year. Oh, no ; " All work and no play makes 
Jack a dull boy." This is literally true, because 
it is philosophically true. But if Parents will 
only be so good to themselves and their children^ as 
to purchase within the next ten days, Combe's 
Constitution of Man jCombk's Phrenology^ Andrew 
Combe's Physiology.^ and Dr. J. B. Dod's publica- 
tions on Electricity., there will be no trouble as to 
how much this or that child shall go to school, 
how much this or that child shall work, or how 
much it shall play. It will be found proved in 
those works, that a child or youth, under 21, is at 
human being ! A very natural inference is, that 
the boy or girl should be treated as a liuman 
being. Well, how is it with human beings? 
Begin with yourself. Have you not some idea 



TREAT CHILDREN AND YOUTH, WITH RESPECT. 91 

when you want to study, play, or work ? Then 
just remember that other human beings have the 
same idea ; and remember that children and 
youth are human beings. Be kind and true to 
them, and they will be kind and true to you. So 
say the Laws. So says all experience, in accor- 
dance with the Laws. Begin with the idea that 
the child or youth knows, instinctively, in regard 
to himself or herself, what you cannot know ; that 
he or she has something to do about it ; and then 
respectfully consult with him or with her about 
what shall be done or shall not be done, and you 
will not fail to arrive at conclusions satisfactory 
to both of you. Your interests are one. You so 
treat the matter — never forgetting to treat the 
child or youth with just as much love and respect 
as you want from him or her — and you will be 
met, halfway. Children and youth, under 21, 
have Rights, as sacred, as inalienable, as those 
who are over 21. To the damage of the interests 
and happiness of them and of ourselves, these 
Rights are neither recognized nor regarded. One 
of their Rights, is to a certain freedom of action, 
because that freedom is indispensable to a true and 
vigorous growth. The more true freedom you give 
them^ the more will they consult y<m^ and wish to 
enjoy it in accordance with your wishes. But 
these beautiful results can never be realized in 



92 SNEERS OF THE SCHOOL PHARISEES. 

the Homes of tlie Farmers and Mechanics of New- 
York, and of the Free States, till they put on the 
courage to snap their fingers in the faces of the 
impudent Pharisees who ridicule and sneer at 
Phrenology, and at Psychology, or the relations 
of Electricity to the human constitution. The 
Pharisees sneer, and keep you" in ignorance ! 
They sneer, and keep you in subjection I They 
sneer, and thus curse your children ! It is for 
the Farmers and Mechanics themselves, and 
for the grown up sons and daughters of Farmers 
and Mechanics, to say whether this shall longer 
be so. But for the children's sake, I beg of you 
to buy those) Books, for yourselves and them. 



63. I am addressed, to-day, in these very 
words : " Women^ with children under twelve^ will 
object to the Three Hours a Day ; they will want 
their children confined longer; not that they look to 
the interest of the child^ but to their own conven- 
ience.^^ Oh, no, tell me not that this is so ! 
Tell me not that the Mother's love — ^fit emblem 
of that which our Heavenly Father manifests for 
all — will do that which she knows is to the harm 
of her child. What ! that mother, from whose 
mind the image of her child is never absent, nor 
even obscured by the cerements of the grave ; who 
watches day and night by the fevered bedside. 



A WORD ABOUT AMERICAN MOTHERS. 93 

scorning alike assistance and fatigue ; who never 
wearies in doing for its happiness, and who, in 
securing it, makes no account of comfort, health, 
or even life ; I say, shall we be told that that 
Mother will send her child to school at an age 
that she knows is unfit? — that she will insist on 
Six Hours School a Day, when she knows it is 
doing harm to the present and future welfare of 
her child ! Who will say that, of American 
Mothers ! I do not mean those " Fashionable " 
things, in the form of Woman, whose very Mar- 
riage (so called) was a commercial transaction. 
I mean Women. American Mothers love their 
children. But love, the purest, the holiest, does 
not teach the Mother whether the child should 
go to school at 4 or 8 years of age, or Three or 
Six Hours a Day. It is elilightened or instructed 
Intellect, does that. Intellect does not love : 
it sees and reasons. That is its exclusive depart- 
ment. So that the Intellects of the Mothers of 
America, must examine this Three Hours School 
a Day question, and see if " these things be so." 
Little, indeed, does he know of the character of 
American Mothers, who supposes that, for a mo- 
ment after their judgment is convinced that 
Three Hours is true, they would consent to have 
their children of any age in School an hour longer 
" to get them out of the way," however agreea- 



94 STUDY, NOT ALL DONE OVER BOOKS. 

ble that might be. This is true of eight out of ten 
of all the nominal mothers in America. If 
fathers only loved their children as well as 
mothers do, and were ready to make equal sacrifices 
for them^ how quick would we have a new order 
of things in the School Department ! 



64. Our machine System, has begotten quite 
universally the impression, that the only time a 
person studies is when his nose is stuck in a 
book. Nothing can be wider from Truth. It 
would be hardly extravagant to say — of an intel- 
lectual organization, it is not extravagant to say 
— that the only time a man does not study, is 
when his nose is placed as aforesaid. While your 
boy or your girl, is engaged in work and play 
during the afternoon, with the mind as free as 
air, with all his or her powers and faculties in 
harmony, a single thought which may flash across 
the mind as it involuntarily turns to the topics of 
its School Work, may very likely be of more 
value than a month's machine schooling at Six 
Hours a Day. — — 

65. Suppose a scholar was to learn one fact, or 
one Principle, each day of his attendance on 
School, from eight years of age to 21 : Three 
Hours a Day, and 100 or 200 days a year. That^ 
he is to remember : it is to be his, forever ! Who 



NOT ONE IN A HUNDRED HEALTHY. 95 

wants to do better than that 1 Yet that is very- 
many times better than the Boys and Girls do at 
our Schools, now, with three, four, five, six or 
seven different "Recitations" or "Exercises" a 

Day. 

66. Suppose you could get 12,000 persons in 
the State of New-York, fit to teach Public Schools 
— ^which you cannot — and were to set them all to 
work, in December, 1854. A large proportion 
of the Districts would repudiate their Teacher. 
Why ? The Teacher will not be allowed to go 
far, contrary to the views of those who employ 
him. But this is no reason why Teachers should 
not fit themselves, and then teach as near to Na- 
ture as the Parents will allow 1 



67. Does any one say I am extravagant in any 
of my positions or premises 1 Let that one bring 
me a person over 21, born in the State of New- 
York, who is HEALTHY. Whcu he does that, I 
will talk with him. If still dissatisfied, we must 
have a census. If, then, w^e do not find that not 
more than one in one hundred, of the entire na- 
tive population, is healthy, I will yield the whole 
ground. By health, I mean strong muscles; 
strong, steady nerves ; free and uniform digestion ; 
all the functions and faculties working in har- 
mony ; elasticity of muscle and elasticity of spirit. 



96 EFFECT ON MANY SCHOOL GIRLS. 

You cannot find more than one in a hundred of 
the native population of this State, who can res- 
pond in a full-toned " aye," to that schedule. I 
do not say that Six Hours School a Day is the sole 
cause: I endeavor to point out wherein it is a 
cause, and insist that so much shall be abandoned. 
But while, I repeat, I do not claim that Six Hours 
a Day is the only source of this appaling and 
lamentable state of things, I will give the words 
to me of one of the most intelligent mothers of 
New-England, who has brought up a family of 
daughters on the principles insisted on in this 
book. These are her words : — " Nine-tenths of 
^ the girls who regularly attend School as their 
^ business, until 18 or 20, as at Seminaries, &c., 
' from the effects of bad air, of the confinement 
'in the School Room, and of study out of School 
' Hours, have spines more or less injuriously 
' affected. When," she continued, " will our 
' people learn that the air — pure air, under the 
' canopy of heaven — is our element — our life — 
' our support — as is the water that of the fish." 



68. The business of life before 21 is to grow, to 
develope, to ripen ; labor of every kind is to be 
for that end, and rest is to be for that end ; while 
the Labor or Life is to be performed by the struc- 
ture thus fitted for it. If I could speak with a 



SURPLUS ENERGY SAVED FOR THE BODY. 97 

trumpet tongue to every Parent in America, I 
would say, "Let your children ripen!" Don't 
pick the pear before it is ripe ! 



69. No human being of any age, should study 
over Three Hours in a Day. For no man or wo- 
man, can remember, and make available for life, 
the ground gone over even in that time ; nay, nor 
that gone over in one hour. What, then, is the 
use of it 1 Is it said that the mind is strengthened 
by the extra labor 1 Not so. The mind is strength- 
ened by that labor only, which is within the mea- 
sure of power. 

70. Do you say there is still Surplus Power 
after the Three Hours School in a Day 7 Then 
for God's sake, let the Body have it ! 



71 . How does it happen that it has passed into 
a proverb, that he who takes the highest honors 
at College, is seldom heard of afterwards 1 



73. There is a Natural Balance between the 

Mental and the Vital powers. In Childhood and 

Youth, it is in the predominance of the Vital ; 

and the Mental powers are to be used only so far 

as they accord with or promote the great end of 

the Vital during growth, which is to build up the 

largest and solidest possible structure. After the 
5 



98 CAUSE OF SO MUCH DEGRADATION. 

structure is built, the Balance gradually approach- 
es equality, till in old age the Mental or nervous 
predominates. But at any period of life — and 
especially during growth — when the true balance 
is awry, it can partially or perfectly be restored 
by activity on the deficient side, and inactivity on 
the other. For j instance, if, under 21, there be 
an ascendency of the Mental over the Vital, let 
the vital be nourished by active pursuits out of 
doors, with the keen appetite and brisk circula- 
tion they bring for the strengthening of Vitality ; 
and let the action of the brain or nervous system 
be diminished. And if the Vital too greatly pre- 
dominates for the true perfection of the System, 
let there be less out-door activity, and more ac- 
tivity of brain. A year or two, will infallibly 
vindicate the integrity of the Natural Laws. 



73. The World is full of degradation, sin, crime 
and misery ; and why 7 Because one part destroy 
and degrade their natures, by working at Manual 
Labor so much ; and the other part, by working 
at Manual Labor so little, or not at all. 



74. There can be no successful Mental effort, 
from the cradle to the grave, that is not the off- 
spring of interest. What, then, is the verdict in 
regard to Parents who drive children to School 



THE YOUNG SHOULD EE FAT. 99 

when they do not wish to go, and in regard to 
Teachers wlio drive them to study 1 



75. Children and Youth should be fat, full, ro- 
tund. If, in early years, they are even somewhat 
clumsy in consequence, and really do not exhibit 
any "brilliant" intellectual points, it is rarely 
indeed that any harm was ever known to come of 
it, in after life. I believe it is true, of a great 
many of those who on an extended scale have 
been a benefit to the race, that, at some period of 
their childhood or youth, the remark was made 
that " they were hardly worth bringing up." But 
in this matter, food, clothing, air, cleanliness, &c., 
&c., have a part also to play. As to those mat- 
ters, I would refer to Andrew Combe, and Mrs. 
L. N. Fowler. I have space only to state that 
Children and Youth should be fat, and to protest 
against preventing it, and wearing it off and 
burning it up, by Six Hours School a Day. 



76. Children and Youth should be straight. It 
would not be strange, if to very many it had never 
occurred, that not one man or woman in ten 
thousand is straight. A straight — an erect — man 
or Avoman is a curiosity. Henry Clay will ever be 
memorable in the eyes of all who ever saw him, 
for this quality ; and the same is always particu- 



100 THE YOUNG SHOULD BE STRAIGHT. 

larly remarked of Andrew Jackson. But how 
could we be otherwise than a crooked nation 1 — 
when, " as the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined" 1 
"When I go into a school, and stay awhile, till after 
the first straightening up is over, the scholars 
always seem to me like so many branches of a 
weeping willow. Their backs are like the outer 
arch of a bow bent for use. How could it be 
otherwise, when, with their soft bones and flexible 
muscles, they are confined so long 1 And where 
are their lungs ? Squeezed into the smallest pos- 
sible compass. Now, if but Three Hours School 
a Day were had, and the scholars never confined 
to the room but an hour at a time, all this could 
be changed. The Teacher could explain perfectly 
the Science of the matter, and by the mere hint, 
when necessary, secure compliance with the re- 
quirement to sit " as straight as an arrow." The 
benefits, I need not recount to those who know the 
human body has lungs. 



77. Let me repeat : If the scholars work Three 
Hours a Day in School, they will exhaust all the 
power that can be devoted to that business, for 
the day, without positive injury; if they don't 
work, what is the use of keeping them there any 
longer ? 

78. I shall close what I have to say, at present, 



VALUE OF A TRADE. 101 

on tliis branch of the question, by quoting a few 
words from an able article in the Philadelphia 
JYorth American^ of May 31, 1854. That paper 
said : — " In referring, lately, to the statistics of 
" our Philadelphia County Prison, we incidentally 
" noticed the fact, that of the two hundred and 
" seventy convicts received into that institution 
" during the last year, no less than one hundred 
" and eighty-three were persons without any regu- 
" lar profession or trade, upon which to depend 
" for a livelihood. There are too many persons 
" who bring up their children in total forgetful- 
" ness of the fact that reverses of fortune in con- 
" sequence of financial or commercial revulsions, 
" are quite frequent in this country. These help- 
" less children, whom a fond parent nurtures in 
" the lap of luxury without any of that valuable 
" training which enables a man to stand forth in 
" the proud attitude of one who is self reliant 
"and sustaining, are occasionally thrown upon 
" the world without resources of any kind. No 
" man whose capital is embarked in active busi- 
" ness can make himself secure against such cala- 
" mities ; and all the assurances which too many 
" hug to their minds that they are safe, are but 
" self delusions, which any day or hour may 
" prove utterly baseless. 

" Looking reflectively upon the present condi- 



102 TEACHERS AND THREE HOURS. 

" tion of our Social Organization, perceiving liow 
" the division of labor concentrates upon each 
" separate description of work a degree of skill 
" which makes the practiced workman valuable, 
" and places the mere amateur or untaught labo- 
" rer at an immense disadvantage, we cannot but 
" wonder at the folly of those who neglect to have 
" their youthful charges taught some profitable pur- 
" suit, leaving them to grow up without any other 
' dependence^ than their natural wits. Necessity 
" is a hard master, and though pride and morality 
" may shrink as long as possible from the com- 
" mission of crime, yet, in the end, they are too 
" often overcome by poverty, want and tempta- 
" tion. There is but one sure way to place a 
" young man beyond the reach of these, and that 
" is to give him a profitable trade or profession, by 
" means of which he may be enabled to procure a 
" subsistence by honest^labor." 



TEACHERS— AND THREE HOURS. 

79. We come now to a few words on the effect 
the change from Six to Three Hours School a Day 
would have on Teachers — on the quality and 
usefulness of their labors. We will endeavor to 
ascertain whether they would be more or less 
useful under Three Hours. It may turn out, that 
those who are good for any thing, will be worth 



TEACHING, IS EXHAUSTING WORK. 103 

much more ; while those who are good for noth- 
ing, must necessarily be worth just as much. 



80. First. — The labor of fhe Teachir is fatig- 
uing — exhausting. — He or she is all the while Pos- 
itive — all the while imparting. To use a word 
in an old and obsolete sense, " virtue " is depart- 
ing from the Teacher, constantly. Thus, is the 
electric or vital force rapidly exhausted. And 
especially is this true of the unphilosophical or 
unnatural method of teaching and of " governing," 
now so generally pursued. School government, 
now^, is a government of force. I speak in general 
terms — and I speak advisedly. Now, all exer- 
cise of FORCE, exhausts the one who exercises it. 
Teachers now keep themselves constantly keyed 
up to the Positive state, so that their power of 
WILL shall control the children. This is almost 
universally true ; and it is so, because but few 
Teachers have as yet seen fit to learn the Laws of 
Mind. This is as true of those who graduate at 
the State Normal School, as of those who graduate 
at Montauk Point — simply for the reason that 
these Laws are not taught at either place. The 
laws of the human mind are not to be found in a 
book written by Dr. Abercrombie, nor in a book 
written by Mr. Upham, nor in a book written by 
Locke, Reid, Brown, Stewart, nor by any other 



104 HOW PHRENOLOGY WAS DISCOVERED. 

man who writes down his own impressions^ and 
his conclusions therefrom, as Philosophy. Such 
a writer may stumble on many Truths ; if he be 
full of Nature, he will surely do it ; but this is 
not the way in which Laws of Mind are settled to 
be Laws. They are determined the same as Laws 
in Chemistry are determined: by the unlimited 
observation of Facts in Nature, and the further ob- 
servation that certain Results invariably attend 
those facts. For Nature is never capricious ; and 
if once we find where she is, on a given point, we 
never afterwards fail to find her precisely there. 
And in the operations of the human mind. Nature 
is no more capricious than in the operations of 
light and heat. She " is the same, yesterday, to- 
day, and forever." By what we are in the habit 
of calling accident — ^but which was not at all ac- 
cident — the idea was caught that the brain was 
not only the organ of the mind, but that particu- 
lar Faculties were manifested through particular 
portions of the brain. On went the investigation, 
by comparing the size of that portion of the brain 
with the strength or weakness of that Faculty in 
hundreds upon hundreds of cases, till it was set- 
tled — settled beyond reasonable cavil — that the 
strength of the Faculty was in proportion to the 
size of that portion of the brain, all other things 
being equal. Now, it will be seen that here was 



LAWS OF PSYCHOLOGY DISCOVERED. 105 

one Law of Mind discovered precisely in the same 
way that it was discovered that if you set a kettle 
of burning charcoal in a close room, death will 
very soon ensue to every human being who stays 
in it. From that start, step by step, by a large 
army of observers, and by millions of observa- 
tions, a Body of Laws of the human mind have 
been discovered, which are ranged under the 
Science of Phrenology. 

But the work was by no means complete. Here 
were the different Faculties ; the place of each in 
the brain, is discovered ; the functions of each, 
portrayed ; the law that each is primitive, settled ; 
that activity gives strength, and inactivity, weak- 
ness ; that like excites like ; all this and more was 
known, but the knowledge of crowning beauty, 
was yet undiscovered. It was not known what was 
the motive power of the hody^ what was the age?if 
or instrument of the mitidy or what was the connect- 
ing link between the two. That has been discov- 
ered, and is now known to be Electricity. A 
man named Mesmer claimed to have first discov- 
ered Laws of Electricity as connected with the 
human system ; and hence it was called Mesmer- 
ism. Experiments were made year after year, to 
the infinite delight and merriment of thousands 
of wise people in the State of New- York, who 
knew it could not be true, that it was all a hum- 



106 FUNCTIONS OF ELECTRICITY. 

bug, for it was not " laid down in any of the 
books," and they had never heard of it before ! 
But experiments went on, laughing also, and dis- 
coveries went on, till we now know that Electric- 
ity is THE AGENT through which all Mental or 
Physical energy is manifested. "We know that 
mental effort exhausts it : we know that bodily 
effort exhausts it ; and that when it is ex- 
hausted the man is unfit for either, or rather can- 
not perform either. We know that Electricity is 
the agent by which mind operates on mind : that 
by temperament and mental organization, one" 
man or woman, boy or girl, is Positive, and an- 
other Negative. We know that Electricity circu- 
lates the blood : which lets a flood of daylight 
into what is called Physiology. Now all this has 
been discovered in the same way that the effect 
of burning charcoal, as referred to, was discov- 
ered — by m.aking a note of the results which fol- 
lowed from certain factSj and that the results were 
exactly so, every time the facts were exactly so. 

The experiments under the name of Mesmerism 
were mainly confined to influences upon the body, 
resulting from the universal Law of Electricity — 
Positive and Negative. What was claimed to 
be genuine clairvoyance, was, however, developed. 
A peculiar sleep, or apathetic condition of the 
nerves, was produced, by which a large number 



" HUMBUG " AN EDITOR IN A FIX. 1 07 

of teeth would at one sitting be taken from the 
jaws of the timid and nervous, without any appa- 
rent signs of pain or inconvenience. In this 
statement, I speak of what I linow. An editor of 
a newspaper, who in his columns ridiculed the 
operator as a " humbug," would take his seat in 
the middle of the Public Hall to see the evening's 
exhibition ; and at the close, could not leave his 
seat, nor could all the efforts of his wife, nor of 
all his friends present, stir him a hair, nor even 
prevail on him to open his eyes. Of course, after 
the matter was fairly and satisfactorily settled, 
the Positive operator, who, while attending to 
his own business, had bestowed attention enough 
on this gentleman to put him in a magnetic sleep, 
removed the influence, the same as you Avould 
demagnetize a horse-shoe magnet, (for on that 
principle the human body is constructed,) and let 
him go. This I saw ; all of which is so simple 
that a child can understand it, if you will only 
teacfi him hy things^ actions^ and word of mouth') and 
not all out of a hook. 

Next came Psychology, of which J. B. Dods 
is the real. American Apostle. But, as do all 
others, in Science, he went up, step by step — first 
operating for years on the received formula of 
Mesmerism, and lecturing in illustration of its 
Principles or Laws. He then advanced, by im- 



108 BUT FEW TEACHERS UNDERSTAND 

perceptible degrees, to the Truths of Psychology. 
As I understand the real meaning of Psychology, 
it is, the relations existing between Mind and 
Body, or the influence which Electricity has, 
through the action of each, on the action or con- 
dition of the other, and how one mind can gain 
influence or control over another. The Pharisees 
of Education were so full of gas, that they had 
another laughing time ; but Psychology goes 
straight on, nevertheless. 

Well, now, here is considerable material of the 
Science of Man. One would suppose it could 
hardly fail to be highly entertaining to almost 
every reasonably intellectual and intelligent be- 
ing of the race ; yet it is true, that not one in one 
hundred of those who go into our Public Schools 
to teach, know anything about it, and, of course, 
do not know anything about their business. For 
it is too late in the Nineteenth Century, to speak 
of one who pursues his business hy guess ^ like a 
bat in his efforts to fly from a lighted room, as one 
wlio understands his business. Whoever attempts 
to teach, and does not understand the Sciences of 
Phrenology, and of Psychology or the relations of 
Electricity to the human System, teaches by guess, 
like one groping round in the dark, as he cannot 
KNOW what he is about ; and it must be curious 
logic, by which one who does not understand his 



PHRENOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 109 

business, is to be pronounced fit for it. These 
Sciences are open to Teachers, at small expense ; 
are simple and easily learned, like all Truths in 
Nature ; and when Teachers and Parents do learn 
them, there will be Progress in School Education, 
and not before, and which does not find its climac- 
teric in a "Programme" and "Classification." 
It is true, that some wiseacres, and the Pharisees 
of Education, now laugh at Phrenology and Psy- 
chology; but it was only in 1807, that just such 
laughed at Fulton for attempting to run his 
" steamboat" from New- York to Albany ; but the 
Steamboat went on, nevertheless, and so will these 

Sciences go on. 

81. Well enough may it be asked. What is the 
use of all this 1 In reply, well may it be asked, 
Of what use for an Engineer of an ocean Steam- 
ship, to know the exact power of steam, and of 
every part of that wonderful engine, as well as 
the exact function of each particular part, and 
its relations to the whole '? Can you not easily 
comprehend that that knowledge is of use 1 Well, 
the Human Constitution is a Steam-Engine, and 
every man, by the eternal and unchangeable 
Laws, is constituted his own Engineer. 



82. When we place Children and Youth in a 
School Room, and a Teacher there who it is un- 



110 THESE SCIENCES NOT IN THE SCHOOLS. 

derstood is to have at his command brute force to 
compel their obedience to his say, he is in the atti- 
tude of the Engineer of the Steamship. He is to 
engineer our Children. Under his engineering, 
they will rapidly grow better or worse ; and where 
is the security that it shall be better, so long as 
that Teacher is ignorant of the Laws of your 

child's Nature? 

83. I wish to state the simple fact, that these 
Laws, as beautiful, as entertaining, as valuable 
and simple, are not taught in a single School in 
the State of New- York that has any connection 
with the Public Treasury. I have known grad- 
uates of the New- York State Normal School — with 
a great big Sheepskin Diploma — who had never 
read Combe's Constitution of Man ! A pretty piece 
of furniture for the School Room, indeed ! 



84. Now, I left off, as I was speaking of the pre- 
sent system of governing schools, as " unnatural." 
It is so, because Teachers do not knoAV Nature. 
If Nature was studied in all the Schools, almost at 
once we would have a complete Revolution ; 
hearing for the last time of " governing " chil- 
dren, but in its stead of "managing" them. 
The Teachers and Scholars are in a position of 
antagonism : the Teacher sets out to govern: it is 
a state of war : and rapidly is the Electric force of 



SCHOOLS, NOW, IN A STATE OF WAR. Ill 

the Teacher exhausted in a persistent effort of 
mind to compel the opposite party to an uncon- 
ditional surrender. Moreover, the Faculties ex- 
ercised in " governing," are all depressing in their 
influence on the immediate condition of the sys- 
tem. Who has not seen a person " turn as white 
as a sheet," and " tremble like a leaf," instantly, 
on getting very angry ? How powerless is the 
man ! The same Taculties are exercised in 
" governing " Children, only in a more moderate 
degree : and t/ie effect is the same^ only in a more 
moderate degree. Every act of scolding, takes 
off a large quantity of Electricity. 

To " govern " Children, then, is an exhaustive 
process ; it takes Electricity from the System, as 
an Air-Pump takes the wind out of a Receiver. 
This is one reason why the Teacher should be oc- 
cupied only Three Hours a Day in School ; as, a 
good share of the time, this makes him pretty much 
worthless the other Three. 



85. It is exhausting to Teach — to Instruct — to 
impart knowledge — to give direction to the minds 
of others. This, again, as the mode of School 
Education now is, requires constantly the Posi- 
tive state of mind. It requires also a constant 
expenditure of Electric force on the objects of our 
care. We are constantly imparting, and therefore 



112 TO IMPRESSj REQUIRES FORCE. 

exhausting. The very statement of what is done, 
carries the conclusion with it. It requires force 
to impart an idea so that it shall reach another 
and be impressed on him, not less than to hurl a 
pebble stone at the same person. All action, let 
me repeat, is attended by more or less loss of 
power. And the constant effort to impress the 
minds of others, is constant exhaustion. How Is 
it with Clergymen ? How is it with our Public 
Speakers generally 1 Do they not complain of 
exhaustion, after two or three hours work of this 
sort ? Yet the Teacher is called on, by our pres- 
ent system, to devote Six Hours a Day, for live 
successive days in each week, and for each week 
in the term — no matter whether he feels well or 
ill. The result is, that a good share of the time, 
the teacher is not worth half the money that is 
paid for him : wliile he makes up fully, in suffer- 
ing, by himself and others, what he is thus made 
to lack in usefulness. 



86. Although teachers are now worked on the 
same principle that treadmills are, it neverthe- 
less remains true, that they are constructed on 
quite different principles, and therefore are sub- 
ject to quite different laws. Out of these Six 
Hours a Day of exhausting toil — followed up, day 
after day, at those precise, inexorable six hours — 



HON. HENRY S. RANDALl's TESTIMONY. 113 

what must be their condition, much of the time ? 
Inevitably below par ! And while this is going 
on, the bodily inactivity to which they are doom- 
ed at the very hours proper for exercise, and the 
impure air they breathe, prevent a re-supply of 
Electricity. The consequences are, a sense of 
weariness, lassitude, and " want of life," at the 
close of the day, and comparatively enfeebled 
powers at the close of term. This ought not so to 
be. Yet it is true, that there are few teachers in 
the State, in town or country, who will tell you, 
at close of term, that they feel in as good bodily 
health and vigor, in as good spirits, have the 
same elastic mental and physical energy, as at 
its commencement. There is testimony on this 
point, of commanding character. The Hon. Henry 
S. Randall, State Superintendent of Schools, in 
his Annual Report made to the Legislature, (Jan- 
uary, 1853,) speaks of Teaching as a ^^ Laborious 
and PHYSICALLY PROSTRATING occupatioTi?^ Is thls 
now true ? And if true, is this wise 1 Is it loss, 
or is it gain, to those who employ ? Are elas- 
ticity, energy, enthusiasm, in the Teacher, less 
needed at the middle or the close, than at the 
commencement of the terml Yet this state of 
things, with its loss and injury to the Teacher, to 
the Children, and to the Parents, must ever con- 
tinue, so long as these two sources of over-action 



114 SURPLUS ENERGY, ONLY, IS OF 

by the Teacher, are kept in full blast for Six 
Hours in each Day. 



87. There is a limit to effort, beyond which we 
cannot go in daily labor, and recover our equi- 
librium of power and elasticity by the time we are 
to commence work the next day. Teaching Six 
Hours a day, exceeds that limit. I am supposing, 
of course, that the Teacher works. If he be there 
Six Hours, and work only Three, of Avhat avail 
are the other three % For a Teacher to work six 
hours a day, I would liken to a horse in a tread- 
mill, capable of 8 hours a day, and compelled to 
tread 10 : the horse for the whole of the 10 hours 
would be "dragged out," and would not do as 
much work in a year, as if required to w^ork the 
8 hours. As things now are, the whole day, at 
School, is often lost. 



88. It must never he forgotten^ that the Teacher^s 
business is to impress and arouse. To do this, de- 
mands superiority of strength of electric power 
or energy. He must be positive. He must exert 
himself. He must put forth eftbrt. Now this 
cannot be done unless he has the capital stock of 
life-power, to begin on. A weary, sluggish, ex- 
hausted, half-rested, half-restored man or w^oman, 
cannot do this. And I will say it, and forever 



VALUE IN MENTAL OPERATIONS. 115 

say it, that no man or woman — with brains ^ and 
susceptibility of temperament^ making him or her 
jit to teach — can teach Six Hours a Day in those 
dens of physical perdition, called School Rooms, 
as now provided, and not be weary, sluggish and 
exhausted at its close. So far from it being essen- 
tial that the spirits and bodily energies of the 
Teacher should be merely at par, in order that 
his time may be worth anything to the scholar, it 
is a Truth in JVature, that we impress ^ we awaken 
and arouse the minds of others ^ only by the expendi- 
ture of energy from a point above par. Surplus 
energy, only, is of value in mental operations : of 
value to yourself, or to others. If this be a Truth, 
it is an immensely important truth. My investi- 
gations into the laws of human electricity — or 
rather electricity in its connection with the human 
constitution — and study from the investigations of 
others — leave no doubt in my mind on this point. 
If it be a Truth, no Hood or Hogarth is needed 
to portray with pen or pencil, the ridiculous, not 
to say fatal, absurdity of our present System of 
shutting up Teachers Six Hours a Day, and com- 
pelling them for that period to go through the 
forms of toil: when, as the inevitable result of 
our Policy, for not one hour of the time are they 
at high-water mark. It is absurd and foolish on 
its face — provided^ the above proposition, that 



116 HON. SAMUEL S. RANDALL's TESTIMONY. 

^^Surplus energy^ only^ is of value in mental opera- 
tions,''^ is a Truth in Nature. 



89. The business of Teaching^ as now pursued^ is 
destructive of health and life. The Hon. Henry 
S. Randall, the present Secretary of State, (1853,) 
testifies that the business of Teaching is a " phys- 
ically prostrating occupation." Translated, this 
means, that those who engage in teaching, are 
dying by slow poison. For no one can pursue a 
"physically prostrating occupation," and long 
maintain the integrity of his bodily or mental con- 
stitution, or live out the full measure of his days. 
For two reasons, Mr. R. is a good witness. He is 
a gentleman of talent and intelligence, and, from 
boyhood, has bestowed largely his attention to the 
interests of School Education — having held vari- 
ous public stations which led him to examine the 
working of Schools with care. His opportuni- 
ties for forming a correct opinion have been un- 
usual, and we have the result in his emphatic and 
unqualified statement that Teaching is a " physi- 
cally prostrating occupation." 

I now call the Hon. Samuel S. Randall, to the 
stand. He, too, is a good ^\itness. His connec- 
tion with the management of the New-York Sys- 
tem of Public Education, during the past fifteen 
years, in the School Deparment at Albany, is well 



SCIENCE OF MAN ^WHY NOT UNDERSTOOD. 117 

known. In an article written by him for " The 
Mew-York Teacher ^^ for February, 1853, entitled 
"The True Teacher," lie gives the following 
testimony on this point: — "By the unremitting 
" drudgery of the School Room alone, may he 
" [the Teacher] hope to sustain the ' loved ones' at 
" home — to ward off from their dear heads every 
" threatened gale of adversity — and Avhile his own 
" life-blood is slowly drained by his protracted and 
" wearisome labors, to place them, if possible, be- 
" yond the reach of want. As he returns Jaiigued 
''and list I ess J from his daily task, his well-stored 
" library in vain solicits his jadid mind: and even 
" ^nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep,' flies from 
" his anxious and restless pillow." 

And so, by our own folly, we have " physi- 
cally prostrated," " fatigued," " listless," " jaded" 
men and women, to teach our children ! Three 
Hours a Day will transform all these into strong, 
brisk and lively people, to the increased profit of 
all parties. • — — 

90. Need we wonder that the Science of Man is 
not generally understood by the people of the 
State of New- York ? Surely not ; for where 
would they have learned it 1 Not at the " Com- 
mon School," for it is not as yet taught there ; 
and there, nearly all our population are graduat- 
ed. At the Academy? — at the College? No! — 



118 THE SCIENCE OF MANj IN NEW- YORK, 

for tlie Science of Man is not taught in a single 
incorporated school, of any name, in the State of 
New-York ; not even in its own " model " institu- 
tion, the State Normal School. I learned noth- 
ing of the Science of Man at School ; and this is 
the history of every one. My attention was call- 
ed to it by friends, and so I was put on the track. 
In this State, then, this glorious Science as yet 
stands outside the School Room : another illustra- 
tion, that all great and valuable Reforms origi- 
nate and are established in their' principles, out- 
side of the profession to which they apply. The 
Science of Man is now taught in the printed vol- 
ume, in certain journals, and by independent 
Lecturers, and is discussed in private circles. 
There is stops : shedding its calm, pure, genial 
and vivifying light, only on the few. Such is the 
actual condition of things in the State of New- 
York. And yet there is no knowledge which can 
compare in interest or value^ with the Science of 
Man. For Man, the crowning work of the Crea- 
tor, He made an epitome of the Universe, inclu- 
ding His own Nature ; and hence, in obtaining a 
knowledge of the Laws of his Constitution, Man is 
gratefully recognizing the Wisdom of the Deity in 
the work of creation. This knowledge gives ad- 
ditional value to all other knowledge, by reveal- 
ing Man's true relations as a portion of the Uni- 



STANDS OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL ROOM. 119 

verse of God ; for how can we know the relations 
of two objects, when ignorant of the nature of 
either 1 

Now, no Science can be mastered save by study, 
somewhere, or somehow ; and where, I repeat, has 
been the opportunity for the Farmers and Mechan- 
ics of New- York, or their Sons and Daughters, to 
investigate the elementary principles of this, ex- 
cept outside of the Schools 1 And what opportuni- 
ties have Teachers enjoyed^ to he any better informed'? 
Almost all of them — say, nine out of ten — are 
graduates of the Common School. It has already 
been stated that the Science of Man is not taught 
there. Some teachers learn the Science ; but they 
get it as outsiders. Is it any better with that por- 
tion of the balance, whom the State has underta- 
ken, by special aid, to fit as Teachers ? A por- 
tion of this special aid, is for instruction in Acad- 
emies. The Science of Man is not taught in a 
single Academy in the State, so far as I ever 
heard. For eight or nine years, we have had 
a State Normal School, designed expressly to fit 
Teachers for the Public Schools. Its Principal 
addressed the class which graduated on the 10th 
of February, 1853, in the following terms : — "I 
" have said that great things will be expected of 
" you, — and this because you have enjoyed the 
^'highest meins of instruction which the State has 



120 NORMAL SCHOOL GRADUATION. 

"provided." And yet it is nevertheless true, 
that that very class graduated as ignorant of the 
Science of Man, as the babe unborn. They have 
a few technicalities in Anatomy, and in Physiol- 
ogy, (so called.) And these, " have enjoyed the 
highest means of instruction the State has provided. ^^ 
Indeed I What, then, must the lowest grade be 1 
Not a living graduate of the State Normal School, 
out of the 600 or 700, can to-day stand up before 
any audience, of any age, and give an intelligent 
Lecture on the Laws of the Human Constitution, 
from any thing he or she ever learned within the 
walls of that institution. Can this be "fitting" 
to train Human Constitutions ? How can a man 
or woman who is ignorant of the Laws which gov- 
ern the nature of human beings, be regarded as 
" fitted " to train human beings ? If these Laws 
were unknown — as fifty years ago they were — 
we would " make our coat according to our 
cloth." But now they are known: and there 
either is, or there is not, a valid and rational pre- 
text, for pretending, at this day, to send out men 
and women, as competent teachers^ while ignorant 
of them. And yet of these graduates "great 
things are expected," while they are ignorant of 
the nature of the beings they are to pretend to 
teach and train ! I am free to confess, that when 
I heard that remark fall from the lips of the re- 



TEACHERS NOW BELOW PAR, IN VIGOR. 121 

spected Principal to that young class of gradu- 
ates, I could but think of those poor people who 
so deeply excited my sympathies when a boy, and 
to whom these words were addressed : — " Go 
" therefore now, and work ; for there shall no straw 
" be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of 
" brick." 



92. To return from this digression, if it be a 
digression. We have proved, by Philosophy and 
by Fact, that the business of Teaching, as now 
conducted, is a " Physically [and therefore Men- 
tally] prostrating occupation." That it " drains 
the life-blood of the teacher," and daily leaves 
him " fatigued and listless," and " anxious and 
restless," and unfits him for study of Books, study 
by Observation, or for improvement of any sort, 
bodily or mental. 

Not that the Teachers are made unable to stand 
on their legs, nor that their minds become idiotic, 
but that they are below the par of that vigor and 
elasticity J of body and of mind, which JVature gives 
to them when her Laws are obeyed. Let it be re- 
peated — let it ring in the ears of the Parents of 
the State of New- York — that if the testimony of 
Hon. Henry S. Randall, and of Hon. Samuel S. 
Randall, be true, the million of children of the 
State of New- York are under the charge of those 

6 



122 TEACHING MAY BE A PLEASURE. 

who are daily more or less prostrated^in bodily and 
in mental vigor ! 



93. It is undeniable^ that the complaint is quite 
general throughout the State^ that children are but 
little benefited by attendance at School. Is it at 
all wonderful I Are Teachers, in such a condi- 
tion, competent to electrify and awaken and in- 
terest the mental energies of the children of the 
State 1 So long as the System is in fine tone and 
vigor ^ Teaching is in itself a pleasure. And the 
instant it ceases to be a pleasure, the Teacher is 
worthless. And it must not be forgotten that in 
the AFTERNOON, the children are as listless and 
weary as are the Teachers, if not even more so. 
But stop over-taxing your Teachers — stop " drain- 
ing their life-blood " — substitute eager animation 
for deadened, reluctant drudgery — change the 
attendance of the children upon the school-room 
from a prolonged imprisonment to eagerly sought 
exercise and recreation — let Three Hours of en- 
ergetic labor give vent to the impetuosity of 
Childhood and Youth, and they will thus find not 
less delight in Work than in Play. 



94. " The Right Kind of Preaching. — It was 
" a beautiful criticism made by Longinus upon 
<^ the effect of the speaking of Cicero and Demos- 



RIGHT KIND OF PREACHING. 123 

" thenes. He says, The people would go from one 
" of Cicero's orations, exclaiming, ' What a oeau- 
" tiful speaker ! what a rich, fine voice ! What 
" an eloquent man Cicero is !' They talked of Cic- 
" ero; but when they left Demosthenes, they said : 
" ' Let us fight Philip P Losing sight of the speak- 
" er, they were all absorbed in the subject ; they 
" thought not of Demosthenes, but of their country. 
" So, my brethren, let us endeavor to send away 
" from our ministrations the Christian, with his 
" mouth full of the praises, not of ' our preacher,' 
" but of God." 

Just change the heading, to the " Right Kind 
OF Teaching," and you have still another illustra- 
tion of great force and beauty. But the " Right 
Kind of Teaching " you never can have, so long as 
you keep Teachers at it Six Hours a Day ; any 
more than you can have the " Eight Kind of 
Preaching," so long as you keep the preachers at 
it half the week, and all day Sunday. 



95. Everything that Children and Youth do of 
their own accord, of their own planning or pur- 
pose, they do with energy. They cannot maintain 
that energy during six hours a day^ in the Labors of 
the School-Room^ and they know it by their expe- 
rience; — so that we do not get the benefit of their 
natural energy at all^ or if at all, with rare excep- 



124 PROVING AN EVIL, IS A BENEFIT. 

tions^ and then from those who ought not to study, 
under any circumstances, over two hours in a day. 
But give them three hours a day for the school 
room, and we will secure that energy throughout, 
for experience will teach them that they can en- 
dure it, and their love of learning new things will 
supply the rest, to say nothing of the life-inspiring 
tone of the Teacher. 



96. Now, does this Six Hours a Day System, 
rest on indifference, on want of examination, or 
in grasping selfishness ? If on the two former, ex- 
amination will furnish a remedy. But if in the 
latter, what folly ! How abortive does it prove 
every attempt, designed or undesigned, to gain 
success by disregarding the Laws of JYature! This 
thoughtless attempt to get more out of the Teacher 
than he can do, and to get more out of the scholar 
than he can do, ends in getting less out of the 
Teacher, and in the partial or total failure of the 
Scholar ! 

97. Some say it is idle to complain, without 
prescribing an adequate remedy. Not so. He 
who ESTABLISHES THE FACT that an evU exists, does 
a good service. He produces well-grounded dis- 
content with the existing condition ; and discon- 
tent is the parent of all human improvement. 
But here, when we have established the evil, we 



WHO ARE FIT FOR TEACHERS 1 125 

have proved the remedy, and it can be tested 
without cost or inconvenience. 



98. Second. — To Repair Exhaustion^ to keep his 
bodily and mental spirits and energies up at par^ 
from day to day, and to gather the requisite supply 
of Surplus Energy J the Teacher must have proper 
hours for labor or exercise of some sort, in the 
open air, during the day time. Six Hours School 
a Day, does not afford it : Three Hours would. 

By turning to Section 21, it will be seen that 
every word there, applies to the Teacher as well 
as to the Scholar. Indeed, does not every word of 
the whole discussion of the gain and loss of Phys- 
ical and Mental energy, by Children and Youth, 
in connection with School — with the single excep- 
tion of the Law of Growth — apply to Teacher 
and Scholar alike? For they are engaged in 
similar pursuits, and for precisely the same hours. 
If so, all that is necessary, under this head, is to 
refer to the premises laid down in that discussion, 
and to the argument, if any, to be found under 
that branch of the subject. 



99. A word here as to the Kind of men and wo- 
men who are fit for Teachers. They should have 
a full development of the Nervous or Mental ; a 
good development of the Faculties all around^ or 



126 DIFFERENT KIND OF MAN FOR MACHINIST. 

as near to that as may be ; an Electric Tem- 
perament, or well endowed electric power, which 
gives activity and force to Mental operations, and 
gives that ready susceptibility to impression which 
places the Teacher in direct sympathy with the 
Scholar in all his moods and tenses. Electricity 
is the immediate Agent of the Mental Faculty 
when it acts ; is the medium or telegraph through 
or by which the thought is conveyed to another ; 
and it is the instrument by which the proper 
impression from the action of the Actor's mind is 
made on that of the Acted On. Of course, then, if 
the Teacher, by natural endowment of constitu- 
tion, and by proper daily waste and supply, has a 
good deal of Electricity, impressions will he readily 
and easily made on his mind. He is thus easily 
moved to mental activity. For it must be re- 
membered, also, that all the Faculties but two, 
are Instinctive, or receive Impressions. 

Now, a very different sort of a man is wanted 
for a first-rate Machinist. There, the Muscular 
Temperament should predominate, with strong 
Vitality ; be as hard, firm and steady, compara- 
tively, as the iron and steel he works. Exacti- 
tude is the great demand. Change the places 
of the two, and both would be comparatively 
worthless. 

I ask, now, if the conclusion is not reasonable — 



teacher's value in the afternoon. 127 

is not inevitable, indeed — that a Teacher, thus 
organized, must, in School, rapidly use up his 
electric force ? And is it not true, also, that a 
full supply of this force, alone, can give value to 
his Labors in the School Room 1 

If these things be so, what is his relative value 
in the afternoon'? It is about the average value 
of Preachers on "blue Monday." And again: 
Where, under Six Hours a Day, is the Teacher's 
opportunity to get a proper supply of Vitality, 
from the operations of digestion, and an adequate 
re-supply of Electricity, for the next day's use in 
School 

100. Third, — The Teacher who makes it his 
business to require scholars to commit " lessons " 
out of " text-books," by rote, and then to recite 
them to him by rote, is a quack. But, how, un- 
der the Six Hour System, can he be otherwise ? 
He cannot y for that length of time each day, teach 
as a teacher should teach; for the attempt would 
find him flat on his back at the close of the first 
term. What, then, must he do ? Be a Machine, 
as we compel him to be, instead of being a live 
man : and make his scholars go through the ma- 
chine we provide for them. 

Now, one thing we want to do by this change 
to Three Hours School a Day, is to transform 
Teachers, as Teachers, from Machines into Living 



128 TEACHING NOW, STEREOTYPED ROUTINE. 

Men and Women. The state of things in the 
Public Schools of the State of New- York, in re- 
ference to stereotyped routine, and recitations by 
rote, is horrible. It is but a petrifaction of brain ! 
Nor will the people of the State ever find a reme- 
dy, till they change to Three Hours School a Day. 
Teaching, like Preaching, is a living or a live 
business. Ask any preacher of one or five or ten 
years standing, if on the start he knew all he has 
preached, and he will tell you, no. He will tell 
you that he learned it from day to day, by obser- 
vation of men and things, and the reading of 
books ; and that if he did not do that, he should 
preach the same thing over and over. Exactly so 
with the Teacher. Where is his opportunity, un- 
der the Six Hours School a Bay, to store his mind 
by observation of men and things, by consulting 
books and consulting men, so that he need not 
Teach the " same thing over and over ?" We do 
not now give him the requisite time ; and during 
the little time he has, he is fit only to be amused, 
and not for any further mental work. 

Now, in our Public Schools, there should be, 
and will be, the Science of Man, the Science of 
Agriculture, the Science of Mechanics, the Science 
of Housewifery. We thus enter upon the do- 
main of JVature ; and the moment we do that, our 
range is unlimited. 



THREE HOURS ^HOW CHANGED THE SCENE ! 129 

What, then, shall be our System of School Edu- 
cation, when we enter on this noble and ever- 
living domain '? Shall it be, that certain matters 
in regard to these comprehensive and captivating 
subjects, shall be written down in what for some 
reason or other is now called a " text-book," with 
all due technicalities, and committed to memory, 
and recited by rote ? Is that to be it ? And is 
the Teacher's function, in the next ten years, to 
be, to " hear " such rote recitations 1 Is that to 
be if? It is — no more, no less — if Six Hours 
School a day is to be continued. 

But change the Plan, and how changed the 
Scene ! Give the Teacher one half the day to re- 
cruit and fit his body, and store his mind, for the 
other half, on the next. Then, when he comes 
into that School Room, at 9 o'clock, the next 
morning, he comes feeling a healthful and equable 
glow of vigor through his whole system, and he 
treads the ground conscious of power to do. He 
feels good natured, in consequence ; and in conse- 
quence^ he is communicative. Parents will please 
make a note of that. He meets the whole school, 
with an involuntary smile of encouragement ; 
and the very tones of his voice, say in language 
instantly understood : — " Go ahead, boys and 
girls, I am with you, to-day." With what a 

spring does business commence 1 With what 
6* 



130 CHEERFULNESS, HARMONY, ENERGY ! 

cheerfulness and harmony it goes on ! And 
whence all this 1 It is because yesterday after- 
noon, our Schoolmaster had an opportunity, in 
the open air, under the full countenance of the 
sun, to perfect the digestion of his breakfast and 
his dinner : to clear away the rubbish which other- 
wise would accumulate and obstruct the work of 
the various secretions, by sending the blood rush- 
ing through every part of the body by active ex- 
ercise at the right time, (in the middle of the 
afternoon) : to secure pure blood, and material 
to maintain fire in the system, and material for 
the manifestation of power, by taking on Oxygen 
and Electricity in due quantities from pure air. 
Besides — by the working of his own free thoughts 
— (and thoughts work when exercise is taken in 
the open air, rather than in the closet) — by his ob- 
servations — by his enquiries of men or wcmen — 
and by his consultation of Books, he has found 
out something he did not know, yesterdaj^, and 
which, to capital advantage, he can tell the schol- 
ars, as, or as not illustration, to-day. Perhaps 
he has sharpened himself on several points, as to 
the way to best illustrate this or that topic on 
which the mind of scholars is occupied, and has 
(to him) new materials to do it with. He feels 
conscious of new and glorious power, for a noble 
use. These are the reasons why, this morning^ he 



A NEW AGE HAS DAWNED. 131 

comes to the School Room with such a self-reliant 
tread^ and greets the scholars with such a benignant 
smile! The scholars catch his inspiration, his 
good nature, and his strength ; and that forenoon 
shows time happily and well spent, to the satis- 
faction of the Teacher and of the Scholars ; and 
at 12 o'clock they part, desiring to see each other 
at 9 o'clock next morning. 

We are entering on a New Age — an Age of 
Intellectuality, — of the predominance of Intellect, 
instead of Muscle, in common affairs — an Age in 
which Knowledge, and the use of it by Intellect, 
are to decide the amount of profit from Labor of 
the Hands ; and we want, and must have, and 
shall have, a School Education to corresfond. 

Three Hours School a Day, alone furnishes this. 
The Teacher, to be fit for this New School Edu- 
cation, which is to fit this New Age, must be a 
daily Learner. By the doings of this forenoon, 
and the probable line of work, to-morrow forenoon, 
will be foreshadowed what, in particular, he 
needs to learn this afternoon and evening, so as 
to be himself fitted for to-morrow forenoon. 
More than this. By no means would I insinuate 
that the free action of the mind of the Teacher is 
to be fettered, and confined in its investigations this 
afternoon, to the line of work for to-morrow fore- 
noon. Oh, no ! — we will not have the Teacher 



132 THE KNOWLEDGE OF TO-DAY. 

tied by a " Programme," if he so ties the Scholar ; 
for, the moment the Study of Kature is introduced, 
there can no Fact and no Law of the Universe 
come amiss in the daily instruction of Children 
and Youth, from whose blithe minds the bands of 
a "Programme" have been struck forever. To 
such a Teacher, thus endowed, it would often oc- 
cur that a point or a subject would be suggested, 
which, by taking up, and treading "Programme" 
under foot, and holding the attention of Scholars 
to it, till he was done^ and then dismissing them, 
after a little while for quiet thought, would do 
more intellectual good, than is often now received 
by them in a term. For these occasions, his stock 
of knowledge cannot be too varied. 

But how can the Teacher know the Knowledge 
of TO-DAY, unless he have time and energy to Study, 
TO-DAY? For he is intelligent, who knows the 
Knowledge of to-day, and not he who knows only 
the Knowledge of the dead Heathen, of thousands 
of years ago ; no matter, if a selfish, exclusive, 
peacock Vanity and Pride have named that, and 
that only, " Classical " ! We are to have Repub- 
licanism in the Schools of the People. Republi- 
canism is of the Living Present, not of the Dead 
Past. The Teacher cannot fulfil this, and be kept 
in that School Room Six Hours a Day, or any 
hours in the afternoon. 



MAKE BOOKS, IN SCHOOL, A TEXT. 133 

In Teaching properly the Studies I have named, 
as well as others, the Books used should be what 
they are now called — " Text-Books." And they 
should be the same to the scholar — a book merely 
to furnish " texts " for the discourse of Scholar 
or Teacher. In Geography, for instance, the itch- 
ing, curious ears of the scholars should be tick- 
led, with a word, more or less, of History — of 
something that has been done, is doings or is to 
be done there, and who were the actors, and what 
were their characters, respectively, ^nd require 
your class in Geography ^ at their exercise in it to- 
morrow forenoon, to entertain you in the same way. 
And so on. But how can it be done, unless we 
have Three Hours School a Day ? And, more- 
over, the Policy insisted on in this Section is in- 
dispensable to keep the Teacher\s intellect alive. 
Two things are sure death to "living intellect;" 
living in a Library — and hearing Rote Recita- 
tions. To these there can be no exceptions. 

Under the present System, the Scholar ceases 
to study when he leaves school, while the Teacher 
is compelled to cease when he begins to teach. 
These are two of its general results. Change the 
System^ and you would double the value of those 
Teachers, who, under any circumstances , are good 
for any thing; while the inexorable law of com- 
petition, would readily "whistle down the wind" 



134 ENABLES TEACHERS TO VISIT AND TALK. 

those who should prove neither competent nor 
inclined to make available to the scholars, the 
immense, I may say, the inestimable benefits, the 
new arrangement might afford. 



101. Fourth. — The Changed Plan would enable 
the Teacher to visit Parents and others interested in 
Education^ in his and other Districts and Hamlets. 
This would be a fruitful source of practical sug- 
gestions, and often of valuable information. If I 
may be pardoned for referring to my own expe- 
rience, I will say , that during the three years that 
I have been engaged in writing on the subject of 
Education and the Public School Policy of the 
State of New- York, I have made it a point to con- 
verse with people of every class and age, and have 
never met with one, who had not an observation, 
a plan, or an idea, to advance. Few there are, 
who have not at least one cherished idea on Edu- 
cation. To make what they said valuable, I have 
not found it important that it should be true. 
So will the Teacher — with a capacity and temper- 
ament and industry fit for his calling — find his 
area of topics of thought widened and multiplied 
every day by this free interchange of ideas with 
others. Above all will this be true in regard to 
visits to Parents, whose hopes are bound up in 
the welfare of their children. And what more 



SOFT HANDS AND SOFT BKAINS. 135 

powerful ally of all that is or can be valuable in 
the School, than enhanced interest on the part of 
the Parent 1 Moreover, on this visit, the Teacher 
could help thrash out a few " floorings of oats," 
help haul a few loads of wood, or chop a little at 
the door. If you can't do it, learn ; for soft 
hands and soft brains, are not wanted " in the 
good time coming." 

Again : This would enable the Teacher to see 
the children at home ; to discover the character of 
family influences to a sufficient extent ; a kind of 
knowledge, which, if possessed, would often mod- 
ify, very essentially, the treatment in many par- 
ticular cases. In the language of an Essay on 
Primary Education : — " Children are so difierently 
" constituted, and require such a diversity of treat- 
^' ment, that we cannot study too carefully, too 
" discriminatingly, their characters. If you visit 
"them at home, you will see reason to excuse 
" much that before seemed like utter carelessness, 
" in the shape of tardiness and absence. You will 
" see why so many have to stay at home to ' mind 
" the baby,' and find that the most unlovely in 
" your presence, if he has a mother, has some one 
" to love him ; if not, then doubly has he a claim 
" on the love of his Teacher." Moreover, on the 
plan herein proposed, the Teacher has time to 
make such visits precisely when needed. 



136 SHOULD KNOW CURRENT EVENTS. 

102. Fifth. — As to the General Information of 
the Teacher^ in reference to Current Events. One 
Session a day, would enable the Teacher to mix 
with Society, in its various phases — to attend pub- 
lic meetings and discussions of every class — to 
read the Journals of the day, which a writer on 
Education, in a recent article, profoundly pro- 
nounces the " lightest literature " — to keep 
thoroughly advised in regard to the movements of 
the age in which he lives, by newspaper reading, 
and by conversation with intelligent men and 
women of different orders of mind and different 
shades of opinion. By such a course, not only is 
his own mind stirred up and strengthened, and 
stored with the richest and ripest knowledge the 
world contains — the knowledge of to-day — but 
thus, from the actual of the world without the 
School Room, does he derive the highest lessons 
of wisdom in regard to the demands on him of the 
beautiful world within. What an absurdity, that 
those whose observations and ideas are now al- 
most confined to lodging and school rooms, and 
the space between them, should be deemed fitted 
to equip the precious craft under their charge, 
for a life voyage on the sea of human interests, 
human passions, and human hopes ! Under the 
Six Hours a Day system, Teachers may go through 
the forms of attendance on Lectures, and of con- 



TEACHING A LIVING PROFESSION. 137 

suiting the volumes of a Library, yet it is philo- 
sophically and practically true, that — " Accord- 
" ing as it is written, God hath given them the 
" spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, 
" and ears that they should not hear, unto this 
"day." 

Moreover, Three Hours School a Day would 
furnish the Teacher with opportunities for con- 
versation and private debate, with those earnest 
and enquiring minds, of large capacity, scattered 
throughout the length and breadth of the land, 
and now to be found in almost every community 
— ^not always dressed in " broadcloth " or silk — 
whose varied intelligence and tastes fit them to 
impart capital hints on almost any point of in- 
quiry. The rapid increase of this class of Men 
and Women — the real men and women of the 
New Age — is one of the features of the times , 
which is to become more and more marked, as 
years roll on. Of all pursuits. Teaching is pre- 
eminently a Living Profession. The True Teacher 
must represent to-day ; to-day casts a shadow on 
the future ; and he must be able to determine its 
direction. " Let the dead bury their dead," must 
be his motto, while he gathers strength from the 
rich, ripe fruit of the Present. If there be a man 
living who should realise that the Present is the 
most mature hour of the world's existence, and 



138 THE PRESENT, THE WISEST AGE. 

must, of necessity, be the wisest, that man is the 
Teacher of childhood and youth. Let him, then, 
avail himself without stint, of the means of every- 
day culture here pointed out, from the Mechanic, 
the Banker, the Merchant, the Farmer — from men 
of every condition and walk in life, in whom ex- 
ists the power of observation and of thought. 
And so far as the Art of Teaching is concerned — 
in that limitless domain of tact, springing from an 
intuitive appreciation of the Laws of Nature — Wo- 
man is the superior, and will ever furnish to the 
Teacher the most valuable suggestions. And in 
reference to this whole matter, if I were to be 
asked, what topics of inquiry and investigation 
are pertinent to the Teacher ? — I would say, any 
topics within the range of human knowledge 
and human interests. 

Another result of this intercommunication, 
would be the occasional visits of some of this 
Class at the School Room, to the delight and profit 
of teacher and scholars. 

I repeat, it has rarely been my fortune to meet 
an intelligent or a strong minded person, who 
had not at least one pet idea on Education ; and 
to a mind fit to be entrusted with a school, the 
hearing of that idea is about equally valuable 
whether it be true or false. For, it being the 
cherished idea, it will have point -, having point. 



NATURAL LAWS, WILL GOVERN. 139 

it will be investigated ; and if false, the argument 
wliicli proves it so, establishes the truth. For 
the dolt, who takes any idea, or principle, and 
acts on it, without so determining its correctness, 
is one in regard to whose presence the children 
might well offer the solemn and impressive prayer 
— " Good Lordj deliver us^ 

I therefore come to the conclusion, that the 
change to" Three Hours School a Day would 

DOUBLE THE VALUE OF EVERY TeACHER WHO NOW 
HAS ANY VALUE AT ALL. 



103. Three Hours School a Day is in harmony 
with Natural Law. Turn whichever way we will, 
we find that the stifling pressure on Scholar and 
Teacher of the present plan of Six Hours a Day, 
arises from trespass on Natural Laws. It must 
be so, of course. For all obedience to Natural 
Laws, is wise : it must work good to him who 
obeys, for the Deity is their Author : all disobe- 
dience, necessarily unwise, and a curse. We have 
only to know the natural law — then, we know 
what to do. And, moreover, these laws, when 
violated, exact the full measure of penalty for 
disobedience. They are strangers to compromise. 
Their Great Author, has left to themselves their 
own vindication. Evidences of the unchangeable 
integrity with which the penalties for their viola- 



140 THE TRUTHS OF NATURE 

tion are measured out, can be found in the phys- 
ical degeneracy of our population, which, in the 
eye of the scientific man, is truly appalling : in 
the general absence of sound health ; in like de- 
generacy in stamina of character ; in the general 
absence of moral courage, and of original thought 
on topics of most value. It is enough to make 
the man of true feeling weep tears of blood, when 
he thinks of the aggregate of the waste of mental 
capacity, of happiness and of true nobility, which 
springs from these causes ; and of the degradation 
and suffering, which might be averted, by placing 
competent Teachers in all the Public Schools of 
the State of New-York. A thousand times have I 
asked myself, " Can the State of Kew-York afford 
thisV The Knowledge which, if applied, would 
make her million of children " bud and blossom 
as the rose" instead of growing up stunted shrubs 
or gnarled trees, without fragrance or beauty, ex- 
ists, and is within reach. The single and simple 
Truth — as yet practically " infidel " in the eyes 
of the Schools of the State of New- York, of every 
grade : — that the mind is dependent on the body for 
the characteristics of its manifestation : — I say, this 
single and simple Truth, recognized and regard- 
ed, would speedily work out a Ee volution in 
School Education. No Law of Nature is better 
established, though its discovery, as a law, is com- 



REJECTED, BECAUSE SIMPLE. 141 

paratively of recent date ; yet it is so simple that 
only a few can as yet be found who, from pride, 
from love of old ideas, or other cause, seem capa- 
ble of comprehending and embracing it. The 
simplicity of Truth is fatal to its claims with 
minds fond of " pomp, circumstance," and mys- 
tery. It may sound uncharitable to some, to have 
it said, that if this vital and fundamental Truth 
in Nature — a Truth which underlies the whole 
structure of Education, and without which, any 
foundation for it is but sand — ^was one it would 
require years of study to learn over the smoke of 
the dull and stupid "midnight oil," and then 
could be understood only by a Few, the " Scholars " 
(so-called) of the State of New- York would at once 
embrace it, act accordingly, and proclaim it on 
the house-tops as the gospel of Nature for the 
temporal and spiritual " healing of the nations." 
But, alas I like every thing from the mind of the 
Great and Good Infinite to man, it is so plain that 
" the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err 
therein," and — it is accordingly rejected! It is 
rejected by those who would fain have us regard 
them as " wise " and " great " and " learned "; 
and wise, indeed, they are, " above what is writ- 
ten" by the finger of the Deity . But it is not al- 
ways to be so. The free and unprofessional and 
teeming Press — the. bold Lecturer — and the more 



142 A NOBLE CLASS OF MINDS. 

busy and life-giv^ing conversation and correspon- 
dence of those large, active and humble minds, 
who find greatness and beauty in Truth only, and 
who know there is a Deity because they know 
there is Truth ; these are the agencies which will 
soon cause the People to say to the so-called "Ed- 
ucator " who spurns the simple teachings of Na- 
ture, that he may " stand aside !" Reliance for 
progress here is on the increased intelligence of the 
mass of the people. It is a safe reliance. On pro- 
gress, rests their highest interests. The Schools 
will improve in the direction, and at the pace the 
People demand — no differently — no more, no less. 
When any Profession radically improves itself — 
through impulses and influences truly in and of 
its living self — then shall it no longer be said that 
the age of miracles has passed : then shall it no 
longer be said a man cannot lift himself in a bas- 
ket ! The advance of Education rests with the 
People ; let them put shoulder to the wheel, and 
they need not call on Hercules. More than 
eighteen hundred years ago, it was recorded 
of the Author of all Truth, that the ''' common peo- 
ple heard Him gladly.'^'' That was not more true, 
than that the " common people " gladly hear and 
act on. Truth in JTature — the unspoken Revela- 
tion of the Great Supreme, as in that forever lies 
their greatest good : for they must stand on the 



PRESENT LIFE OF THE TEACHER. 143 

common platform of Equality, erected by Nature 
for all men. — — 

104. What is the Life of the Teacher, now ? 
Every day — so many, and just such hours, — it is 
work, work, work ; no matter what the state of 
the health or of the feelings. To him, as to the 
galley slave, there is no margin for discretion. 
Does the preacher do this 1 Does the lawyer do 
this 1 Do the Farmer or Mechanic do this 1 Does 
the Legislator, even, to whom is confided the in- 
terests of those who sent him, do this 1 No, not 
one of them ! Not one in the whole range of so- 
ciety, mounts the tread-mill, save the Teacher. 
The lawyer investigates his cases when he feels 
like it; the priest studies and writes when lie 
feels like it ; and the Farmer and Mechanic work 
at their business when they feel like it. I speak 
comparatively, of course. The Teacher can not 
dismiss for a half hour's brisk walk in the open 
air, when he knows it would double his value for 
the day. It is true, that, of necessity, there must 
be system — regular hours each day ; but then that 
can be not only endured by teacher and scholars, 
but in general made profitable to the latter, if the 
Teacher be not each day overworked. The absolute 
necessity of having the work that is done each day 
done at regular hours, is a cogent and controlling 
reason why the teacher should each day be un- 



144 EVILS OF ROTE AND MACHINE WORK. 

derworked, that he may be fresh and vigorous at 
the allotted time for his allotted task. The value 
of a Teacher for the day^ depends on his or her 
mood and temper of body and mind for that day. 
What sort of sermons would you have, if so many 
pages were to be completed by working at them 
six specified hours, of each day ? How long 
would you go to hear sermons thus prepared 1 
There is not a physical or mental condition neces- 
sary to writing well, that is not equally necessary to 
teaching well. Let us, by adopting this change in 
our System, have teachers and scholars ^^ to work. 
As to how Teachers shall work, when thus fit to 
work : that, is an independent question. 



105. It is true that the routine, rote, machine 
System of so-called instruction, comes in, also, for 
its share of condemnation. It does its fair share 
in producing that inanity of mind, and that re- 
pulsiveness to study, absence of thought, and ina- 
bility to investigate, which are to be reckoned 
among the grand results of our System of School 
Education as It Is. But it is equally true, that 
if the exercises of the School Room were in har- 
mony with the Laws of Nature, the charge of 
over-confinement brought by the body, and of 
over- work brought by the mind, would still come 
up with overwhelming and crushing force against 



WHEN HAS GENTLENESS, POWER ? 145 

the present System of Six Hours a Day. In view 
of the whole case, it is hardly extravagant to de- 
nominate the Public Schools of the State of New- 
York, a Juvenile Prison Association. 



106. Surplus Vitality or electrical energy, 
makes the Teacher amiable and witty : two indis- 
pensable requisites to success. How few are amia- 
ble, when exhausted by mental labor ? — and who, 
then, is witty ? — or who, then, keeps in tune and 
play the Social and Mirthful faculties and moral 
sentiments, without which the proper activity and 
equilibrium of the circulation can not be main- 
tained, and freedom, ease and precision in the ac- 
tion of the brain, secured. Now, that gentleness, 
that quiet, firm kindness, that repose of manner 
which is ever the insignia of power ; which draws 
to you as by an irresistible magnetism the love 
and respect of scholars ; will never he at your com- 
mand unless your system he in high and fine tone. 
The energies must be not only at a high key, but 
all strung in harmony. And when so likely to 
be kept in tune, as when at proper key 1 Peevish- 
ness or fretfulness will in an instant annihilate 
all power of control over scholars ; yet what is 
the present system of Six Hours a Day, as de- 
scribed in its results by the Messrs. Randall, 

7 



146 A NOBLE CLASS OF TEACHERS. 

either more or less than a bounty on the constant 
exhibition of these fatal qualities ? Surely, there 
are some things not yet " dreamt of in our Philos- 
ophy." 

107. If the Teacher is good for any thing, under 
the Three Hours System the balance of the 24 
hours will be made far more profitable to the ad- 
vancement of the Children in knowledge, than if 
3 more were spent with them in the School Room. 
If he is not good for any thing — that is, " not fit" 
for his place — what good to shut the children up 
in a room with him in the afternoon 1 



108. There are Two Classes of Teachers. There 
is a body of Public School Teachers in the State 
of New- York, men and women, who may well be 
said to constitute a share of its true nobility. 
Endowed with genial natures ; possessing liberal 
and comprehensive views ; enthusiastic in their 
devotion to Science, and especially to the Science 
of Man ; they are necessarily far in advance of 
the Public Sentiment. But by that sentiment, 
alone, can they be sustained ; and hence, they 
cannot do what they know fidelity to Truth, and 
therefore fidelity to the interests of the Children, 
demand. But the triple fetters of Ignorance, 
Bigotry and Prejudice — an inseparable trio — are 
soon to be broken ; their cabalistic words are to 



ANOTHER CLASS OF TEACHERS. 147 

be hushed forever ; and then, these noble spirits 
are to be set free, blessing others by their intelli- 
gent and untrammeled labors, and blest in turn 
by the appreciation and pecuniary reward they 
will receive. 

And then, there is another Class : inane, precise, 
prim, as a stalk of shrunken wheat ; as dignified 
as a sucked orange on the mantel-piece, and as 
dry and empty j whose natures, destitute of capa- 
city to receive impressions, are endowed with just 
enough of intellect to learn forms only to obscure 
them — to mistake them for substance, and the 
signs of things for things signified ; these, I say, 
are another Class, the outline specimens of huma- 
nity, who are to disappear before the rising sun 
of Philosophy, as the mist of the morning ; — and 
soon, very soon, the places that " know them will 
know them no more forever." Too cold to love 
and too feeble to hate, and thus automatons by 
the very laws of their nature, in obedience to the 
principle that like creates like, the poor innocents 
by whom they are surrounded grow up bearing 
indelibly the lineaments of this partial, disfigured, 
machine organization. As soon as a Scientific 
System of School Education takes the place of the 
present Machine System — and that will be on the 
very day that Parents require it, for demand and 
supply govern here, as in the price of potatoes 



148 MACHINE TEACHERS SOMETIMES POPULAR. 

these people will be wanted to count needles for 
packing, and for other shuilar work, for which 
nature designed them. 

Such are the two classes of Teachers to-day at 
work in Public Schools : one fit, the other utterly, 
irredeemably, unfit : one alive — the other dead. 
One, belongs to an age almost dead : the other, 
to the "living present," When the People of 
New- York come to be alive to the Ideas with 
which the very atmosphere seems pregnant all 
over the world ; ideas, linking universal Humani- 
ty by a common bond of sympathy, then will liv- 
ing men and w^omen alone be entrusted with the 
superintendence of Childhood and Youth, Then, 
will Parents demand living Teachers, and endorse 
the demand with living Kewards, And as soon 
would they feed upon carrion, as then to feed the 
minds of their children on the husks which fall 
from those mummified caricatures of Humanity. 
And yet some of these Teachers, in certain lo- 
calities, have a decided popularity — ^but among 
whom ? Among those who — although, as the Pa- 
rents of young immortals, they have assumed the 
highest and noblest responsibility of earth — have 
never devoted one hour to a knowledge of the 
Science of Man. They have no idea but a School 
is a Military Drill, or at least a model States Pri- 
son, with its " lock-step," and other samples of 



GOOD TEACHERS GOOD PAY. 149 

" order." " Like people like priest." «^ Like 
people like teacher." Teachers will ever be just 
what the People are pleased with ; for that is the 
road alike to reputation and to pecuniary success. 
It is because " Like people like teacher " is true, 
that the New- York State IsTormal School, which is 
a living libel on Philosophy, is suifered t® have 
even a " name to live." 

Yet one word here. The People decide on the 
quality of the Teacher they will have ; but it is 
at the same time true, that a living Teacher can 
wake up love for Science — for the laws of Nature 
— in a whole District, as a living Newspaper can 
develope a healthy tone of sentiment in a majori- 
ty of the people in its neighborhood. The People 
and the Teacher can help each other in the work 
of Progress ; one, getting more benefit, and the 
other cheerfully giving more pay. An intelligent 
people would as soon embark in robbing hen- 
roosts, as consent to have the services of a good 
Teacher, without good pay. 



109. Excessive Study in the Public Schools. 
— Our city prides itself on the superiority of its public 
schools; and we think Boston is justly entitled to take the 
highest rank among the cities of the civilized world, for the 
facilities afforded by its citizens for the education of youth. 
But notwithstanding the large expenditures of money for 
the erection of beautiful and commodious school-houses, 
for mathematical and other instruments, for teachers, &c., 
all which give a character to our Boston schools, there does 



150 BOSTON MEDICAL GAZETTE. 

exist an evil in the present system of educating children, 
which seriously demands attention, and if possible, a remedy. 
It is the ambition of the teachers of our schools, to have 
their scholars thoroughly instructed, and that they may 
appear well before the committees at examinations; and for 
that purpose, lessons in g"reat numbers, and requiring toil- 
some study, are imposed upon them. No discrimination is 
made, as regards the mental or physical capacity of the in- 
dividual members of a class, but all are required to be per- 
fect in their answers, or else Ihey lose their position in the 
class anci'school. Not one-fifth of the time devoted to school 
hours is allowed for study, being occupied in recitations; 
and the severe tasks the poor children have in getting their 
lessons, must be apparent, when it is known that so long a 
time is required in reciting them. The scholars of the sec- 
ond class, for instance, have to commit to memory from 
twelve to tirentv-jive pages of geography, three to six pages 
of arithmetic, the same of grammar, three pages in spelling, 
besides exercises in reading, writing, &c. Now these les- 
sons must be studied out of school, at the time which should 
be devoted to exercise and recreation. The imposition of 
such severe tasks upon young and growing children, must 
enfeeble their constitutions, and often incapacitates them, 
if they arrive at maturity, for enjoying life. AVe have seen 
many children who were ambitious to accomplish all that 
was required of them by their teachers; and to do so, the 
greatest portion of the twenty-four hours was necessarily 
devoted to their books, scarcely allowing time for taking 
their meals. It must be obvious to every one, that such 
close application to study, produces, in its turn, a train of 
diseases which cannot always be eradicated. Achirg heads, 
loss of appetite, sleepless nights, inflamed eyes, with other 
deviations from health, are the accompaniments and the 
consequences of this excessive mental exertion. It is our 
intention, in a future number, to enter more into detail in 
regard to the condition of the present school system in this 
city, so far as it has a tendency to impair health and abridge 
life in the young; but in the meantime, it is hoped that our 
school committee will give the subject their attention, and 
correct the abuse complained of. — Boston Medical and 
Surgical Journal, Aug., 1854. 



PART II. 



" II ia an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever propos- 
ed, which, if daily pursued, failed to prevail in the end." — Thomas Jefferson. 

"The chief art of learning, is to attemf t but little at a time. The widest 
excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated : the most 
lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single 
propositions." — John Locke. 

" The effort to extend the dominion of Man over Nature, is the mo«t 
healthy and the most noble of all ambitions." — Bacon. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In this Part, each Section will gener- 
ally be independent in itself, without 
much reference to the character of its 
neighbors. Different things, to an extent, 
will be said : some of them, perhaps, in a 
different way. 



r^i 



THREE HOURS SCHOOL A DAY. 



PART II. 



110. It is a great lie, the prete?ice that the 
^'common people,^ — those for whom '^ Common 
Schools''^ are provided — can not learn all about 
the Philosophy of Matter^ and all about the Phi- 
losophy of Mind. Yet such is — practically — the 
prevailing Opinion in the State of New-York. For 
is not all pretension to the study of Intellectual 
Philosophy, and of Moral Philosophy, now con- 
fined to what are denominated the " Higher" 
Schools ? — the Colleges and Academies and Uni- 
versities % Who now thinks of having anything 
which even pretends to be the Philosophy of Man, 
taught in the " Lower " Schools ? If it were not 
for the fact, as a general thing, that the College 
and Academy and Normal School Professors, 
with their huge sheep-skin Diplomas, and the 
"profound" Library moths who give us works 
on " Mental " and Moral Philosophy, do not them- 
selves know any thing of the Philosophy or 



156 PHILOSOPHY EASILY UNDERSTOOD. 

Science of Man, I would charge tliem wUJi a Grand 
Conspiracy to defraud the " common people " out 
of that which is to be their highest good and high- 
est joy. For any mind^ of common power ^ can 
comprehend all of Philosophy there is in the 
Universe. He or she can Itarn it, too, and get a 
living by honest toil of the hands — in that " good 
time coming, right along," when The Laborer is 
to have and enjoy the earnings of his own toil. 
That " good time " will be, when the Science of 
Man, and the Science of Agriculture, and of 
Housewifery, are in our Public Schools. Men and 
Women, who study the Laws of Nature, never al- 
low others to live on their earnings. They are 
then able to protect what is their own ; for, by 
reasoning, they have gained the power to reason. 
I say, any mind of ordinary power can readily and 
easily comprehend any Law of the Universe. 
This is as true as that there is a God of Infinite 
AVisdom, Power and Love. And yet we are told, 
and are to be told, that the " common people" can 
not comprehend Mental Philosophy : that only 
the uncommon people who go to school at Acade- 
mies, Colleges and Universities, are capable of 
that. Let us see. What is Intellectual Philos- 
ophy ? It is the Laws which govern the Intel- 
lectual Faculties, and their relations to others. 
What is Moral Philosophy l The Laws which 



LAWS OF MIND, READILY RECOGNIZED. 157 

govern the Moral Faculties, and their relations to 
the other Faculties. Well, where do we find 
these Laws 1 Written on every Man's Nature ! 
— acted out, every day. And yet we have been 
told, and are told, that the men who plough, 
build houses, make hats, coats and boots, and the 
women who take wholesome and invigorating 
sweats over the wash-tub, and do housework, cari 
not understand^ and quickly and easily under- 
stand^ all about these Laws. As Avell tell us that 
they are not capable of knowing their own faces 
in the looking-glass -, for when the glass is pre- 
sented, and when the Laws are presented, in each 
case it is their own image that is placed before 
them. Why should not the Laws of the mind, 
with the operations of which they have every day 
been unconsciously familiar, be recognized as 
quickly, when presented^ as the features of the 
body when presented 1 All Nature's Laws are 
simple. Each one of them can be understood by a 
child. They were one and all established by the 
Deity, and it would be utterly inconsistent with 
His character for Infinite Love, not to have de- 
signed that Man should learn them ; to have made 
Man so that only the strongest of the race could 
comprehend them ; or to have made them so hard 
to learn, that all could not master them and at- 
tend to the various responsibilities of life. The 



1 58 THE SCIENCE OF MAN, IS THE 

" profound " Intellectual and Moral " Philoso- 
phieSj" annually got out by the " Professors" of 
the day, nobody understands — nobody can under- 
stand — for their writers do not understand them 
themselves. Their " Philosophies" have about as 
much to do with Nature, and with conclusions 
resulting from the correct observation of Nature, 
as a change in the moon has to do with the wag- 
ging of a dog's tail. Why! — they have to change 
their " Philosophy" every once in a while, and 
get out a new one ! The next we shall know, 
they will tell us they have got up a new Deity ; 
for Philosophy is but the manner of the manifes- 
tation of the Deity, and is therefore as eternal and 
unchangeable as Himself. It is, so far, God re- 
vealed or described. So to talk of " improved" 
Philosophy, is the same as to talk of a changed or 
"improved" God : for Philosophy can change only 
as its Author changes. Philosophy, is Truth : 
it endures forever, and can neither be improved, 
changed, nor overthrown. The Speculations of 
individuals, over musty books, in musty libra- 
ries, have been for centuries, and are now, palmed 
off in our Colleges, Academies, and Universities, as 
Philosophy : as Science. They advertise these 
idle Speculations as such, in their Annual Cata- 
logues. No wonder, that " only the deeply learn- 
ed?'' fools " care for them?^l Indeed, the "philo- 



GENERAL LIGHT OF THIS AGE. 159 

sopMc" predecessors of such as these, for ages 
puzzled their brains in discussing the proposition 
whether a spirit in Heaven could go from one 
part of it to another without passing through the 
intervening space ! 

But a new day has dawned ! The Sun of Phi- 
losophy has risen, to reveal to Man the Science of 
his own Nature, and to show him the relations in 
which he stands to all the rest of the Universe. 
It is copied^from the open page of God's works. 
Not yet complete is this New Revelation of the 
Wisdom, and of the Power, and Love of the Crea- 
tor : but, by the mode which Philosophy prescribes, 
when a thing is proved, it is known to be true. 
The New Relations established by New Discove- 
ries, will create yet New Relations and New Dis- 
coveries still : each new one shedding a flood of 
light on all that went before — as the Harmony 
among these Laws is perfect. It comes not from 
the Alcoves of Libraries : it is out-door men who 
make the world move. The Library tells you 
what has been done : what has been proved, and 
you wisely consult it to mark jomy point of depar- 
ture, not, as the point where Science is to end. 
In this New Age, you must not rely on the Libra- 
ry to tell you even all that has been proved. 

The Science of Man is the central light of this 
age. From that, all other mental progress radi- 



160 WHY STUDY THE SCIENCE OF MAN 1 

ates. As we now use names, the Science of Man 
consists of Phrenology, Psychology, and Phys- 
iology. They are all really one ; for whatever 
Law is classed under either, is in perfect harmony 
with all the other laws under all — and is part of 
a whole which is the Science or Man. And why 
is its study, indispensable ? Why is a knowledge 
of it a positive benefit ? Because, in his JVature^ 
Man possesses the elements of all existence. Hence, 
he sustains relations to all existence. Those rela- 
tions are governed by Laws, which are unchange- 
able. The Laws of his own Nature are in Harmo- 
ny with the Laws of all existence. Therefore, 
does it not follow that every act of every Man, 
must either maintain or disturb, that Harmony ? 
Every act of Discord, is loss : every act of Har- 
mony, gain. And therefore, does it not follow, 
that on the Harmony or Discord of his own action, 
depends inevitably his retrogression or progress ] 
And how shall he know how to obey the Law, 
unless he know the Law ? 

The Philosopher goes to Man, as he would go 
to a Mountain, and observes and copies down from 
the open page of Nature so legibly written by the 
finger of the Deity, the Laws of man's body and 
mind, which include of coarse the relations the 
body and mind sustain to each other. This is 
Science. This is Philosophy. If the Philosopher 



ALL CAN EASILY MASTER IT. 161 

sticks to the mountain, he calls the Laws he dis- 
covers. Geology. If to Man — as names now are 
— he would call them Phrenology, Psychology, 
Physiology: some one, or all of them. Hold up 
these Laws to the persons ohserved^and will they not 
recognize them as the elements of their own compo- 
sition ? (In this question, Bigots are not included ; 
for they are blind, and so can't see.) These per- 
sons recognize these Laws, as being true, as read- 
ily as they would recognize their own daguerreo- 
types. In either case, it is their own image. 
They know the daguerreotypes to be likenesses, 
for they were copied from faces with whose linea- 
ments they are familiar. So of the copy from Na- 
ture which the Philosopher presents them. They 
at once know it is a likeness of Nature, for they have 
seen, and felt, and acted it, all their lives. Indeed, 
as a man can neither think, talk, nor act, without 
exercise of the Natural Laws, must he not in-, 
stinctively know whether any proposition claimed 
to be a law of his own Nature, is law, or is not 
law ? Moreover, by the exercise of Observation 
and Reason — the same as when the Law was discov- 
ered and established — he is to determine for him- 
self whether it be law, or not law. The beauti- 
ful Volume of Nature is equally open to all. 
Then would I like to know what is to hinder all 
the Sons and Daughters of the Farmers and Me- 



162 SIMPLICITY OF TRUTH. 

chanics of the State of New- York, and of all States, 
from knowing all about the Laws of their own 
Nature that have been discovered, or that may 
be discovered, and at the same time attending to 
all their usual business affairs, with at least their 
usual success ? 

The world has as yet only begun to know of the 
Simplicity of Truth. It is because so little of it 
has as yet been discovered; and because our 
first Education was in Error. When Truth is de- 
veloped, it will be found that there is not a Prin- 
ciple in all the works of God, which a child could 
not comprehend. Hence, in our Colleges and 
Academies, and among our " profoundly learned" 
men, we have existing two causes of hostility to 
the Science of Man — pride, and superficiality. A 
man trained in the nonsense called Intellectual 
and Moral Philosophy in our Colleges, Universi- 
ties, and Academies, gets his brain so twisted, 
that he has a thorough distaste for the simplicity 
of the Science of Man : he has become so accus- 
tomed to a sinuous track, that he can not follow 
the direct route pointed out by unadorned logic, 
unclouded by the smoke or gas of Speculation. 
And are the " profoundly learned" to get oif 
their lofty pedestal, where they are enveloped in 
a mist of senseless words and more senseless spec- 
ulations, as dense as a Newfoundland fog, and 



SIR ISAAC Newton's apple. 163 

thus made secure from the gaze of the " vulgar 
herd"? Will they do this, and adopt the Science 
of Man, when by so doing they will, inevitably — 
in this Knowledge — find themselves on a level 
with that " vulgar herd"? This is the real point 
in the case, and the real pinch of the case. In a 
Knowledge of Man ^ can these people consent to be 
on a level with those who earn their daily bread 
by daily sweat '? For there they must stand, 
from the hour they discard Speculation, and 
adopt Science. 

So the College, and University, and Academy 
" Professors," sneer at the Science of Man. They 
ridicule the idea that Phrenology is a Science, or 
that Psychology is a Science, and go on with 
their Speculations in regard to the Nature of Man. 

Very good. Nobody would deny them the 
privilege of thus sneering; and surely no one 
would question the right. I wish simply, on this 
point, to put on record their position, in 1854. 

Suppose we take a peep into these " institu- 
tions," and see who they are who do this sneering. 

The books tell us, that once on a time. Sir 
Isaac Newton saw an apple fall from a tree. 
Newton had large Causality, and he wanted to 
know the why of it. To be sure, apples had 
fallen from the day of Mother Eve's experiment, 
to that : and moreover, everything else fell to the 



164 SAMPLE OF COLLEGE ^^ PHILOSOPHY." 

ground. But this did not satisfy the enquiring 
mind of Newton. He determined, finally, that 
the apple was attracted to the earth ; and he nam- 
ed it the " attraction of gravitation." This was a 
long time ago, and the " attraction of gravitation" 
has been a spoke in the wheel of " Philosophy" 
ever since. The Colleges and Academies of the 
State of New-York, in 1854, teach their students 
that bodies " fall to the earth" by the " force of 
the attraction of gravitation," and that that force 
is in proportion to a certain state of facts. Very 
well : but " What is the attraction of gravitation"'? 
" li is the attraction of gravitation^^ ! And such is 
the stuif called " Philosophy" in all the Colleges 
and all the Academies in the State of New- York ! 
That is — " The generality of things in general is 
the generality of things in general, because, the 
generality of things in general, is^ the generality 
of things in general"! " The attraction of gravi- 
tation, isj the attraction of gravitation"! This is 
College and Academy " Philosophy," in 1854! — 
not in 1754. Are not these a pretty set of men to 
turn up their precious noses at the proved and 
established Laws of the Constitution of Man ^ ranged 
under the names of Phrenology and Psychology ! 
If they would study those Sciences, they would no 
longer dole out such senseless twaddle as that, 
and call it "Philosophy." "The attraction of 



"centripetal" and "centrifugal" ! 165 

gravitation is the attraction of gravitation" ! Oh, 
oh ! And these are the " Higher" institutions of 
Learning ! And then they tell us that the Earth 
is kept in just such a path in its yearly journey 
round the sun, by the " centripetal" and " centri- 
fugal" forces. Indeed ! But do they tell us what 
the " centripetal force" is, or where it came from, 
or what keeps it a-going '? Do they tell us the 
same of the " centrifugal force"? Not at all ! 
" The centripetal and centrifugal forces, are, the 
centripetal and centrifugal forces" ! More College 
and Academy " Philosophy"! Who does not re- 
collect how he used, in his reciting days, to try 
to remember which was which, till his back 
ached, to say nothing of his head ? And when, 
for once, he got it right, how at the next attempt, 
a week or month after, he would be all mixed up 
again 1 For the books might as well have said it 
was the hamboozleorum and Hderiorum forces, for 
all any meaning We were ever taught to attach to 
" centripetal" and " centrifugal." ^nd suchis the 
way the human mind is " trained^^ (!) in our 
"Higher" and "Lower" Schools, in 1854: arbi- 
trary terms and technicalities, taking the place of 
principles and ideas : ^nd so it must be, in the 
" Lower j^ till, by Thi'ee Hours School a Day, both 
Teacher and Scholar have some time for thought; 
and till the Teacher is thus enabled to submit to 



166 SCIENCE DISPELS COLLEGE FOG. 

the sharp and rapid expenditure of Vital Force 
which must attend original thought, and the use 
of pointed and telling off-hand illustration, which 
shall present Truth in vivid colors as a Living 
Picture before the mind. 

But to return to the " Philosophy" of the Col- 
lege and Academy gentlemen who can afford to 
sneer at the Sciences of Phrenology and Psychol- 
ogy. How quickly is the " profundity," and the 
starch and the fog taken out of their operations, 
when we come to the Simple Truths in Nature : — 
that all Motion and all Attraction in the universe^ 
are Electric ; that there are Two Conditions of 
Electricity, Positive and Negative ; that two Posi- 
tives, as well as two Negatives, repel each other, 
and that Positive and Negative attract each other ; 
that Active or Passive, Greater or Less, determine 
the Positive or Negative; and that the Earth, 
being a larger body than any to be found on its 
surface, is Positive to the Negative of everything, 
and hence, each inevitably attracts the other to it, 
and hence, the " Attraction of Gravitation" ! 
And then as to the distance of the Earth from the 
Sun. All attraction is Electric. The Sun is the 
centre of our System — is to it the source of Elec- 
tricity. In the original order of events — of which 
we know nothing — the position of the Earth was 
where it and the Sun were equally Positive : And 



THE PEOPLE MUST WALK ALONE ! 167 

at that point it must be unerringly held by the 
eternal laws of the repulsion of two Positives, 
and the attraction of the Positive and Negative. 
If the Farmer, or Mechanic — the Day Laborer, 
the Girl at Service, the Tinker, or the Cobbler — 
has been a pupil of Dr. J. B. DoD's,in Psychology, 
he or she knows what the " Attraction of Gravita- 
tion" is: the College and Academy Professors, 
who sneer at the " Science of Psychology" do 
not know ! Put Phrenology and Psychology in the 
Public Schools, and all the Scholars can tell you 
what the " Attraction of Gravitation" is, and the 
Scholars of the Academies and Colleges, cannot ! 
What say you. Farmers and Mechanics, and 
Houseworking Women, of New- York : Have you 
spunk enough to Walk Alone, and thus to make 
the Education of your Children in the Public 
Schools, twice as valuable as the College and 
Academy Education 1 Is it not demonstrated 
that it may be sol Do you not see that there 
must be a cutting off of all affinity between the 
Public Schools, and Colleges and Academies'? 
These gentlemen who sneer at Phrenology and 
Psychology, coolly tell us "that the People of 
"this State — by Law! — are to aid Three Depart- 
" ments of Education: the Primary, the Interme- 
" diate, and the Higher" : the " Primary," don't 
you think, these untitled snobs of nobility, hand 



168 THE PEOPLE WANT AN EDUCATION. 

over to tlie Farmers and Meclianics, as being ahun- 
dantly sufficient for them! The " Common Schools" 
to furnish a " Primary" Education lor the " Com- 
mon People" ! This is to be the next move of 
the snobbish aristocracy of this State. Away with 
your " Primary" Education ! That is not what 
we want. We want an Education ! Will you 
bend your back to carry out this Scheme of the 
aristocracy 1 One of their number has already 
publicly declared — " It wants but an organization 
" which may bring them together, to produce 
" such results ; and that organization will before 
" long ensue.^^ What say you, Farmers and Me- 
chanics of New-York : Will you stand it 1 

And HERE is the Issue. 

The Public Schools must cut off the remotest 
affinity with Colleges and Academies, and adopt 
at once the Science of man and the Science of 
Agriculture, or they will remain, what they are 
now, mere foundations of Cash for those who pat- 
ronize Colleges and Academies to rest upon. The 
State will be divorced from the two latter. 

But to go back. If all this time that Mesmer- 
ism and Psychology have been " on the carpet," 
the College and Academy Professors of our State 
had been studying Experiments instead of sneer- 
ing at their Results, they would not now occupy 
the humiliating and ludicrous position they do 



MIND, THE PRIMAL POWER. 169 

in regard to the " Attraction of Gravitation," or 

the " Centripetal and Centrifugal forces." But 

how does it happen that the study of Psychology 

should have led to a knowledge of these easy and 

self-proving solutions, in purely Physical Nature 1 

li is because Man is an Epitome of the Universe. 

The Laws of his Nature, are, therefore, an Epitome 

of the Laws which govern the Universe of Matter 

and of Mind. Psychology, so-called, seeks out 

the relations Body and Mind have to each other, 

and therefore, the influence each does and can 

exert on the other. In making these experiments, 

it was discovered that the Mind is the Primal 

Power of the Human Constitution. But, then, 

the Mind must have an Agent — a sort of Medium 

to work by or through — if you please j and by a 

suflS.ciency of experiments it was settled as Law, 

that Electricity is ever the Agent or Instrument 

of human Mind when it works, and that it is the 

connecting link between the Body and the Mind. 

Now, in arriving at these two Laws — sublime in 

their beautiful simplicity and beneficence — the 

Experiments were varied, and almost as countless 

as the sands of the sea shore. In this way, the two 

Laws of Electricity — that it is the source of all 

Motion, and of all Attraction, in the Universe 

— were discovered from this stand-point, because 

the stand-point is an epitome of the Universe. 

8 



170 ORJECT OF COLLEGE EDUCATION. 

The man of Science, therefore, did not find him- 
self any longer obliged to play the Parrot, by 
saying that " The attraction of gravitation is the 
attraction of gravitation" ! 

Let me not be misunderstood . By " cutting 
off all affinity" between the Public Schools and 
Academies and Colleges, I simply mean that the 
Public Schools adopt their Educational Policy 
without any reference to them ; that they no lon- 
ger be in leading strings. Colleges and Acade- 
mies never did benefit Public Schools, and they 
never will. It is contrary to the Laws of the hu- 
man mind, that they should benefit the Public 
Schools. The Colleges and Academies have been 
made an Aristocracy^ by Law ; and never ^ never, 
was an Aristocracy known to uplift its vassals ! 
Never ! For forty years, the laws of the State of 
New-York, in effect, have made the " Common 
Schools" the Vassals of the Colleges and Acade- 
mies. One is " Classical !" — on the ground of 
studying what a few Heathen said, in the lan- 
guages in which the Heathen said it — the other, 
" Common" ! One is a " School" — the other, an 
" Institution" ! Hence, the Education in Colleges 
and Academies is for a different Purpose yrom 
that which must guide Public School Education. 
The object of College and Academy I^ducation, is 
to make of a few the superiors of other men : to 



OBJECT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. 171 

enable them to do what others who do not go 
through their process, cannot do : and by so ar- 
ranging Theology, Law and Medicine as to render 
this necessary to the highest success^ to perpetuate 
a practical Aristocracy, originating and resting 
in the bosom of Government, sometimes Monarchy, 
and sometimes called Democracy, and to carry 
along with it alike the elements of superior Cash 
and of superior Power! Indeed, the College 
System was originally for the use of those who 
were to have all the knowledge possessed by the 
whole community. The Colleges were organized 
to that end : and in no essential particular, has 
that organization ever been changed. Now, we 
don't want any such kind of Education in our 
Public Schools. Our object here, is to make in- 
dependent Men and Women. To so far introduce 
them to a knowledge of the Volume of JSTature, 
that they can read in it every day, as they have 
occasion, either in their business, or for entertain- 
ment. The object is not, to make one set higher 
than another. It is to develope the Manhood and 
Womanhood of all, for the sake of Manhood and 
Womanhood : that each may have and hold and 
enjoy within himself or herself, a higher scale of 
existence. We want to make the Man a Man, 
for the Man's sake. This is a System of Equality 
— of Brotherhood — of Fraternity. It is all, for all. 



172 INFALLIBLE TEST OF SCIENCE. 

It is a Christian System. Hence^ in the Public 
Schools, we want a System of Education totally 
different from that of the Colleges and Academies. 
And hence, too, the folly of the notion, wherever 
indulged, that it is an acquisition to get teachers 
for the " Common Schools" from among those who 
are chock full of a " regular course," at Academy 
or College, by way of inocculating the College 
Education into the " common people." They are 
precisely the men we do not want in the " Com- 
mon Schools," if they are impregnated with the 
idea that the rigmarole they went through at Col- 
lege, is Education. 

That " Mental Philosophy" (so called) which 
the Ploughman, the Mechanic, the Day Laborer, 
the Housewife, cannot easily and readily under- 
stand, is necessarily spurious. This very fact, 
proves that it is not of God. Simplicity is the 
clear and unmistakable proof of the Divinity. If 
what is alleged to be a Principle^ be not Simple, if 
is not from the hand of Deity, and is therefore 
NOT Philosophy. 

The (so-called) Philosophy of Mind, taught by 
the College and Academy " Professors" of New- 
York, they declare is hard to understand: therefore, 
it is not Science. 

I will simply add, here, that what is taught in 
the Colleges and Academies of this State, under 



A GLORIOUS EMANCIPATION. 173 

the titles of " Intellectual Pliilosopliy," " Mental 
Philosophy," and " Moral Philosophy," is the 
" Generality of things in general," and not other- 
wise ; for here, they do nothing but '^ guess," from 
beginning to end. 

And what a glorious Emancipation of the glo- 
rious Children and Youth who graduate from our 
Public Schools, when, with them. Science shall be 
substituted for a weak and watery dilution of 
College Mummery ! Let the Public Schools 
adopt the Science of Nature : let the Colleges 
and Academies go on with the Science of Words ! 
Enough has been discovered and established of 
the Science of Man, to Revolutionize all that is 
called Education. The Science of Education is 
as simple as the " Attraction of Gravitation"; and 
in a few years will no more be deemed a matter 
of mystery by the Farmers and Mechanics of the 
State of New- York, than raising a crop of oats or 
making a horse-shoe. 



111. "You SHALL HAVE THE BiGGEST PlECE 
NOW, FOR I HAD THE BiGG-EST PlECE BEFORE." — Early one 

morning, while it was yet dark, a poor man came to my 
door, and informed me that he had an infant child very 
sick, which he was afraid would die. He desired me to go 
to his house, and if possible prescribe some medicine to re- 
lieve it; " for," said he, " I want to save its life if possi- 
ble." As he spoke this the tears ran down his face. He 
then added, " I am a poor man, but, doctor, I will pay you 
in work as much as you ask, if you will go." I said, "Yes, 
I will go with you as soon as I take a little refreshment.'* 



174 CONSCIENTIOUSNESS AND BENEVOLENCE. 

^' 0, sir," Scaid he, " I was going' to try to get a bushel of 
corn, and tict it ground to carry; and I am afraid the child 
will die before I get home. I wish you would not wait for 
me," and then added, " We want to save the child's life if 
we can." 

It being some miles to his house, I did not arrive there 
until the sun was two hours' high in the morning, where I 
found the mother holding her sick child, and six or seven 
little, raggBd boys and girls around her, with clean hands 
and fiices, looking as their mother did, lean and poor. On 
examining the sick child, I discovered it was starving to 
death ! I said to the mother, "You don't give milk enough 
for this child." Shesaid, "I supposeldon't." " "Well," 
said ], "You must feed it with milk." She said, "I 
would, sir, but I can't get any to feed it with." "I then 
said, " It will be well then for you to make a little water- 
gruel and feed your child." To this she said, "I was 
thinking I would if my husband brings home some Indian 
meal. He has gone to try and get some, and I am in hopes 
he will make it out." She said all this with a very sad 
countenance. I asked with surprise, *' AVhy, madam, have 
you nothing to eat .^" She strove to suppress a tear, and 
answered, sorrowfully, "No, sir, we have had but little 
these some days." I said, "What are your neighbors, 
that you should suffer among them }" She said, " I sup- 
pose they are good people, but we are strangers in this 
place, and don't wish to trouble any of them, if we can get 
along without." I thought I would give the child a little 
manna. So I asked for a spoon. The little girl went to 
the table-drawer to get one, and her mother said to her, 
" Get the longest handled spoon." As she opened the 
drawer, T saw only two spoons, and both with the handles 
broken off, but one handle was a little longer than the other. 
Thinks I to myself this is a very poor family, but I will do 
the best I can to relieve them. While I was preparing the 
medicine for the sick child, I heard the oldest boy (who was 
about fourteen) say, "You shall have the biggest piece 
now, because I had the biggest piece before." I turned 
round to see who it was that manifested such a principle of 
justice, and T saw four or five children sitting in the cor- 
ner, where the oldest was dividing a roasted potato among 
them. And he said to one, "You shall have the biggest 
piece now," &c. But the other said, " Why, brother, you 
are the oldest, and you ought to have the biggest piece." 
"No," said the other, "I had the biggest piece before." 
I turned to the mother, and said, " Madam, you have po- 



EARLY BRILLIANCY OF INTELLECT. 175 

tatoes to eat, I suppose ?" She replied, *' We have had, 
but that is the last one we have left; and the children have 
now roasted that for their breakfast."' On hearing this, I 
hastened home, and informed my wife that I had taken the 
wrong medicine with me to the sick family. I then pre- 
scribed a gallon of milk and two loaves of bread, some but- 
ter, meat, and potatoes, and sent my boy with these, and 
had the pleasure to hear in a few days that they were all well. 
The principle of justice manifested in those children de- 
lighted my soul, and served as a rich reward for all my 
labor. how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell together in unity and love! To see them in time of 
distress and starvation, so just and liberal as to give to each 
one his full share of one roasted potato, was a pleasant 
sight. 0, the sweet words, " You shall have the biggest 
piece now, for I had the biggest piece before!" May every 
child embrace this just and loving principle. — N. Y. 
Cabinet. 



112. Brilliancy of Intellect in Childhood, and 
extraordinary or wonderful attainments, by vol- 
untary efforts, should alarm and frighten any 
parent. Stupidity, dulness, slowness, indifference 
to everything printed in a book, are joyous 
omens, compared with those. One, is the sure 
precursor of comparative or absolute imbecility, 
or of death ; the other, may be the precursor of a 
life of excellence, vigor, original power, and of 
usefulness. 

Bat what is the philosophy of this ? — or why is 
this so 1 It is because Vitality — predominant, 
unmistakably predominant, Vitality — is the law 
of Childhood and Youth ; and because, Vitality is 
not Mentality. Vitality is the law of Childhood 
and Youth, for the plain reason, that then the 



176 WORK OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 

house that the mind is to live in daring its stay 
on earth, is going up. Because, as you build, so 
you must live. If you build a tottering, rickety, 
leaky house, you must live in it, as some people 
express it, during your " born days ": if a good, 
strong, solid house, you can live in that. The 
business of Childhood and Youth, is to build that 
house : and he or she, parent or teacher, who will 
overwork ; who will work to severe fatigue, in 
body or mind ; any person under 21 years of age, 
deserves to stand on a dunce block, or in the pil- 
lory, with a Handbill on the back and breast, and 
the ears pinioned, in token that they are very 
long. Nature "winks" not at this sin. It is not 
Mentality — it is Vitality — that builds the house 
the Man or Woman, for life, is to dwell in, secure- 
ly or insecurely — ^happily or unhappily — ineffi- 
ciently or usefully . Mentality helps, but Vitality 
is to be predominant — that's the idea. Vitality is 
not Mentality ; so Vitality is dull, stupid, and all 
that : in other words, there is no Mentality about 
Vitality. And if Vitality predominates — largely 
predominates — what must be the result 1 I state 
this case repeatedly, you say; but you say so, 
only because all your " born days" you have been 
nursed and nourished on falsehood^ which has liter- 
ally " grown with your growth and strengthened 
with your strength." Look at the poor, peaked, 



VITALITY TO BE PREDOMINANT. 177 

sharp featured things, called children ! Look at^ 
them, with narrow, shallow chests, and flat mus- 
cles ; the victims of this insane notion that child- 
ren must be " smart." Twist as many ways as 
you please, and when you have done, you will 
find out that Vitality lies at the foundation of 
" smartness"; and therefore, till the laws of Nature 
change, those whose Vitality in Childhood and 
Youthis burned out of them by an Intellectual flame^ 
will, in mature years, be found destitute of that 
oil which alone can enable them to furnish their 
own Intellectual Light. 

The Truth, then, is, that during Childhood and 
Youth, the predominance of Vitality must be 
maintained. 



113. Creeping Things. — Let me put a spider 
into any lady's hand. She is aghast. She shrieks — "The 
nasty, ugly thing." Madam, the spider is perhaps shocked at 
your Brussels laces, and although you naay be the most exqui- 
site painter living, the spider has a right to laugh at your 
coarse daubs as she runs over them. Just show her your 
crotchet work when you shriek at her. " Have you spent 
half your days upon these clumsy anti-macassars and otto- 
man covers .'* My dear lady, is that your web .'' If I were 
big enough, I might with reason drop you and cry out at 
you. Let me spend a day with you and bring my work. 
I have four little bags of thread — such little bags ! In every 
hag- there are more than 1,000 holes — such tinny, tinny 
holes ! Out of each hole a thread runs, and all the threads 
— more than 4,000 threads — I spin together as they run, 
and when they are all spun they make but one thread of 
the web I weave. I have a member of my family who is 
no bigger than a grain of sand . Imagine what a slender 
web she makes, and of that, too, each thread is made of 
3# 



178 TEACHERS AND PHRENOLOGY. 

4,000 or 5,000 threads that have passed out of her four bags 
through 4,000 or 5,000 little holes. Would you drop her, 
too, crying out about your delicacy ? A pretty thing, in- 
deed, for you to plume yourself on your delicacy, and 
scream at us." Having made such a speech, we may sup- 
pose that the indignant creature fastens a rope around one 
of the rough points of the lady's hand and lets herself down 
lightly to the floor. Coming down stairs is noisy, clumsy 
work, compared with such a way of locomotion. These 
creeping things we scorn, are miracles of beauty. They 
are more delicate than any ormula clock, or any lady's 
w^atch now made, for pleasure's sake, no bigger than a shil- 
ling. Lyonet counted 4,041 muscles in a caterpillar, and 
these are a small part only of its works. Hooe found 14,- 
000 mirrors in the eye of a blue-bottle, and there are 13,- 
000 separate bits that go to provide nothing but the act of 
breathing in a carp. — Household Words. 



114. Teachers should Understand Phrenology, 
No person is fit to take charge of any School, who 
does not understand this Science of Phrenology. 
I wish to raise this issue, in the minds of the 
Young men and Women, and of the Boys and 
Girls, of this State : A person unacquainted with 
Phrenology^ either is fit to teach, or is not fit to 
teach. I say not. 

Phrenology, is the Chemistry of the Human 
Constitution. It does not make that Chemistry, 
of course : that exists in Nature. It is an Expo- 
sition of that existing Chemistry. "When a person 
enters the School Room, as a Teacher, those Ele- 
ments, and their Relations, are there before him, 
in the full vigor of ceaseless activity. Ignorantly 
or skillfully, he is to operate on them. Every 
thing which occurs in that School Room, occurs 



NO TWO SCHOLARS ALIKE. 179 

in conformity to Natural Laws : and every act of 
the Teacher, in reference to each scholar, will be 
in harmony with, or in violation of, those Laws. 
Now, I ask, how can any one be relied on to ob- 
serve Laws he does not understand ? 

What Features does the Chemistry of that 
School Room present? I can give but few: I 
have not space : let each one read a few books, 
then observe, and he will know all for himself. 
But these are among those Features : — There will 
be no two Temperaments alike, in the room, un- 
less there happen to be twins there. There will 
be no two alike in Mental Organization. One, 
will be attracted to the Book, as iron to the mag- 
net. The attraction of the one on the next seat, 
to the Book, will be about the same as that be- 
tween the same iron and a tallow candle. One, 
will be so Organized, that, if a shadow of the lu- 
dicrous or odd turns up, he must laugh : the next, 
with small Mirthfulness, Vitality and Hope, and 
large Self-Esteem and Firmness, ought to be tick- 
led occasionally " with a straw," to keep his sys- 
tem in healthful working order. One, with Elec- 
tric Temperament, large Intellect, and large Love 
of Approbation, will so work the Mental Machi- 
nery, that, after one hour, every moment of study 
is a trespass on the pow^r needed to nourish the 
Physical System; and out of such, our Quack 



180 DIFFERENCES IN NATURES. 

School Chemists have strewed this whole State 
with graves of diminished span, or embittered a 
longer yet perpetually enfeebled existence. The 
scholar on the next seat would devote six hours 
to the same study, achieving less than the other 
in one hour, and quit as fresh as he begun, bar- 
ring the effect of confinement and of breathing 
carbonic acid gas. He has a swelling, hard, 
plump, fat Vitality ; large Alimentiveness, Stom- 
ach to match, moderate Intellect, large Self-Es- 
teem, and says to himself, this " study business 
don't amount to much : it will never set the North 
river a-fire !" One, with Nervous temperament, 
large Intellect, large Moral Organs, Approbative- 
ness and Adhesiveness, and small Self-Esteem, 
may do a wrong : may trespass on Regulations 
which are established ; and be crushed, by a harsh 
word or look from the Teacher. The one on the 
next seat, with the Eating Temperament — the 
Vital and Muscular predominating — with cocoanut 
head scarcely less in quality than in shape, that 
is, with small Intellect, or small Comparison 
and Causality, large Alimentiveness, Destructive- 
ness, Combativeness, Self-Esteem, Acquisitiveness 
and Secretiveness, small Approbativeness and 
Moral Faculties, will commit the same otfence, 
and an hour's scolding, and flogging at your leis- 
ure, leave him undisturbed by any other feeling 



LAZY DOG5 TAKES THE " PRIZe" ! 181 

than a desire that he might enjoy the luxury of 
administering the same to you. Another, with 
large Language, Time, Tune, Order, Locality, 
Comparison, Individuality, Form, Si^e, and the 
Nervous, or Vital Temperament, or the two com- 
bined, will, with no effort^ be the Header of the 
Class. The next, with Form, Size, Language, 
Time and Tune small, with effort^ will be the drag, 
and the mark of criticisms and objurgations — I 
will not say whether witless or not. Having, 
however, large Eventuality, Causality, Locality 
and Comparison, he will perhaps be the Historian 
of the School, will write an Essay on it that will 
" astonish the natives," while the gallant Reader 
will hesitatingly move over that ground like a 
limping and jaded horse. Another, deficient in 
Number, will be like George Combe, who, while 
he will forever remain as the Organizing Philos- 
opher of his Age, can only, after much time and 
laborious mental effort, make out a clear state- 
ment of the Bookstore and Door Ticket and Cash 
Account of one of his inimitable Lectures ; and 
yet another of this boy's Class, who performs no 
labor over Figures, at the close of Term carries 
off a Prize in that Department ! And what does 
that Prize represent ? Ten to one, consummate 
laziness ! Ten to one, that the only lazy dog in 
the class, on Arithmetic, bears off the Prize ! Of 



182 WHAT TEACHER IS A QUACK. 

the suppressed lieart-burnings of the others, who, 
perhaps, know both their Labor and his Laziness, 
and of its influence on them for life, I will say 
nothing ; contenting myself with holding the 

" mirror" 

of New- York School Education 

"up to nature," 

at the very hour the surplus wit(!) of its State 
Normal School, finds congenial employment in 
ridiculing the Science of Man ! 

But enough. The Combination of Elements 
in the Chemistry of Man, is without end ; and that 
person who presumes to Teach, in 1854, without 
understanding that Chemistry, and hence produ- 
cing in every case precisely accurate results ^ is, of 
necessity, a Quack. He is just as much of a quack, 
as the common Blacksmith would be who should 
present himself on the deck of a Collins' steamer, 
and offer his services as Chief Engineer to take 
the ship across the Atlantic. He is a quack, who 
goes at that he does not understand. The person 
who does not understand Phrenology, by no pos- 
sibility can understand the Science or Art of 
Teaching. He or she may get along after a 
fashion ; may comparatively excel ; but neither 
the Science nor the Art is there : for it is forever 
true, that the highest attainable Art, in anything, 
cannot be reached so long as the Science is not 
understood. 



SOME THINGS THAT ELECTRICITY DOES. 183 



To the Young Men and Women, and Boys 



and Girls, I would say, George Combe's Constitu- 
tion of Man and his Phrenology ^ will give you the 
Faculties of the Mind, their functions, and their 
Laws. Andrew Combe's Physiology^ will give 
you tlie functions of the Body, and their Philoso- 
phy, or Laws of Health. Tlie writings of Dr. 
John Bovee Dods, will tell you of the connecting 
link between the two, and what is the Motive 
Power of both. Tliis Motive Power is Electri- 
city : the Power by which all impressions are 
made ; the power tlirough which all impressions 
are received ; which is the working instrument of 
vitality , which circulates the blood ; which car- 
ries on the work of disengaging dead materials 
from every part of the System, and of galvani- 
zing on new materials to replace it; tlie agent 
through which the Mind influences the health of 
the Body, and the Body the healtli of the Mind ; 
which determines whether Mental Impressions are 
retained forever, or are as a figure traced on sand ; 
which determines whether the action of one mind, 
as teacher, friend, enemy, speaker, or writer, 
shall, or shall not, make impression on another ; 
which tells us when the Body has worked enough 
for the health and vigor of the Mind, and the 
Mind enough for the health and vigor of the Body ; 
which shows us precisely why the condition of 



184 TECHNICAL GRAMMAR, VS. ELECTRICITY. 

each depends on the condition of the other ; why 
neither can be right, unless both are right ; which 
is the key to the phenomena of all intercourse, 
including that between teacher and scholar ; 
which tells us why long Schools and long Ser- 
mons, are an evil and not a good ; which shows 
us what kind of persons are fit for Teachers, and 
for Preachers — what kind of persons can operate 
on Mind, and what cannot. These are among 
the things Electricity does and shows ; and yet, 
for shame! its glorious Facts, and its glorious 
Philosophy, which are positively to redeem and 
revolutionize a large portion of the machinery of 
School Education, and of other Social Institutions, 
are not to be found in a Public School in the State 
of New- York, in 1854 ! Yet years are devoted 
to a vain attempt to cram into the heads of the 
innocent victims wdio congregate therein, the con- 
temptible technicalities of Grammar ! — and the 
victims leave School, without the faintest idea of 
the philosophy, of the use, or of the power, of 
Language ! Who will come forward and change 
the coloring of this picture ? Electricity is the 
Motive Power of the human system, precisely as 
Steam is the Motive Power of the locomotive. 
Its Laws, tell you how it is supplied to the Sys- 
tem — ^how it is expended by the System — how 
much may with profit be expended by Activity of 



MIND, CHOPS OFF THE LOG. 185 

Body, and how much by Activity of Mind. The 
Teacher, therefore, who knows these Laws, can 
tell precisely how much Bodily Labor, how much 
sun and open air, how much confinement to the 
chair or bench and Book, this or that child needs, 
or can endure. The scholar himself or herself, 
can know it better than any other person living ; 
for it has its own Impressions to which to apply 
the Laws. Electricity is the Motive Power ! 
please to remember ; and when it has heen ex- 
hausted (as it never should be, anywhere) in the 
School Room, the man cannot chop off a log: 
when exhausted in chopping off logs, a man can- 
not write a speech : — for it is the Mind that 
writes the speech and chops off the log — Elec- 
tricity, and the arms and fingers, and the other 
anatomical arrangements, being, in each case, but 
instruments of the Mind. Electricity is the Mo- 
tive Power, in both cases : And as is the Electri- 
cal Power, so can the Mind work, in chopping off 
the log or in writing the speech. And yet, to 
these interesting, important, beautiful, glorious 
Truths — which give life and language to all else 
that is known of the Science of Man — every Col- 
lege in the State of ISTew-York, its Normal School, 
every Academy, and every Public School, is as 
voiceless as the grave ! 

Parents of New- York ! Would you trust your 



186 SELF-RELIANCE OF BOYS AND GIRLS. 

Children on board a Collins' steamer, for a trip 
across tlie Atlantic, if informed that a common 
Blacksmith was the Chief Engineer? Do you 
reply, that by so doing, their lives would be in 
jeopardy ? Is it not so here 1 Do not the Laws 
of Electricity hold the issues of life and death 1 
Let the thousands of early graves, annually dug 
by this ignorance on the part of the College, 
Academy and Public School Teachers of this 
State, answer these questions. 

Boys and Girls of New- York ! Upon 

you this whole matter rests ! Will you consent 
to leave School, without the real, practical, sub- 
stantial, every-day advantages, which a knowl- 
edge of the Science of Man would afford you in 
all your relations through the journey of life? 
Will you consent to do it ? If not, take hold of 
it, and the work is done ! Those who have just 
preceded you — those who have graduated from 
the Public Schools within ten years — are still 
linked to you by sympathy, and will aid you. 
Your mothers will not turn a deaf ear, when you 
tell them that you are determined to have a bet- 
ter school to go to — even if it does cost a little 
more. Your Fathers and Mothers will put their 
hands in their pockets. The Revolution which 
is demanded, which is neither more nor less than 
the Education of the People — a thing yet un- 



A SCHOOL "prize," IS A CURSE. 187 

known in the annals of man — is to be wrought by 
those who have graduated, and are to graduate 
from our Public Schools. And the Boys and 
Girls, from 12 to 21, are to furnish the zeal, the 
enthusiasm, the energy, the inspiration, for this 
work. Your Interests demand it, now! Ten 
years, now^ is like moving past us the panorama 
of your Life : for, during that period, its leading 
and governing tints will have been painted in fast 
colors on the ground- work of your existence. 



115. "Liberal Gifts to Hamilton College. — 
Hon. George Underwood, of Auburn, has given ^500, the 
income of which is to be given as a prize for proficiency in 
Chemistry; and Hon. Aaron Clark, of New-York, has pro- 
vided, by a similar donation, the same encouragement to 
proficiency in Oratory." — Jfll the papers, j^ugust, 1854. 

If the Newspaper Editor who originated the foregoing, 
had understood the Laws of Man's Nature, he would have 
headed his paragraph — " Accursed Gifts to Hamilton 
College." If Messrs. Underwood and Clark had un- 
derstood the Laws of Man's Nature, they would have with 
held them; for I presume them to be true and honorable 
men. If Hamilton College understood the Laws of Man's 
Nature, it would respectfully, but as firmly as respectfully, 
decline the proffered gifts. They would not consent to 
plant the poisonous seeds of Selfish Ambition, Pride, Van- 
ity, Envy, Hate, Uncharitableness, by giving a hot-bed 
stimulus to Self-Esteem, Approbativeness, Acquisitiveness, 
and by putting ice on Conscientiousness, Veneration and 
Benevolence. This fatal poison is cultivated in the minds 
of our Youth through the length and breadth of our land, 
who are so fortunate — as it is called — as to go to some other 
School than the Public School. It is so — deplorably so — 
in Boston, where Prizes are now annually distributed by 
scores; and still we wonder at the cheating, and fraud, and 
trickery, of every grade and every form, which prevail 
among these, when they come to be men ! These accursed 



188 WHY IS ELECTRICITY NOT 

" Gifts," like the fabled apples, fair to the eye but ashes to 
the taste, are rapidly multiplying", and their fruits are to 
be seen on every hand, in the appalling predominance of 
Selfishness, "llow can ye believe, which receive honor 
one of another ?" — are the words of the Ever Living God, 
written in His Word, and on His Works. — w. l. c. 



116. About Electricity. Is there a good deal of 
it in the human system 1 Is it the agent through 
which all impressions are made on the mind^ 
Is it the agent, instrument, or medium, through 
and by which, the Voluntary and Involuntary 
Faculties, perform all their functions ? Are the 
Voluntary and Involuntary nerves, but telegraphic 
wires, to communicate the influence and will of 
each Voluntary and Involuntary Faculty? Is 
Electricity the working power of the human sys- 
tem, as Steam is of the locomotive 1 If it is, must 
not its Laws be as simple as the Laws of steam ? 
If it is, is not an inquiry into that which is the 
controling agent in the manifestation of power of 
body, or power of mind, worth knowing some- 
thing about? And would it not be well for our 
Schools to let alone a part of their eternal ^^cipher- 
ing," and look into this wonderful matter ? And 
why are not these laws studied in our Public 
Schools ? Because they are not studied in Colle- 
ges and Academies ! That's it, precisely ! Col- 
lege and Academy men — not the People — have, 
thus far in the history of our State, shaped and 



TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ? 189 

controled our public Schools. One of the most 
talented men, a graduate of Yale College, told me 
last winter that the System at Yale, in 1854, is 
substantially what it Avas 200 years ago ! And such 
has been the source of the shaping and controling 
of our Public School System : a System which is 
but one respectable remove from barrenness. It is 
now a System of vassalage : but it is as sure 
as that there is a God, that the Eevolution is 
speedily to come ! We, the People, can't afford 
longer to play " second fiddle" to incorporations 
which lazily remain in the same shell, for 200 
years ; so we shall certainly soon have the Laws 
of Electricity, in reference to the Human Consti- 
tution, investigated in our Public Schools. It 
will be done, just as soon as the State frees its 
skirts from all connection with Colleges and 
Academies, and leaves them to manage their own 
business in their own way. 

But about Electricity. There are some proofs 
that there is Electricity in the Human System. 
It must be there, of necessity, if the doctrine be 
true, that Electricity permeates every particle of 
the Universe, like the Omnipresence of the Deity. 
If I knew them all, space would not allow me to 
give them all. I will state one or two. The 
effect of an Electrical Battery upon the system, 
proves that it is a good conductor. The fact, that 



190 PROOFS OF ELECTRICITY. 

when a person is put in the " Magnetic State" — 

or, to suit the most ignorant and captious, I will 

say, in a " state differing from the ordinary one" 

— it is done in the same way as you magnetize a 

" Horse-Shoe Magnet" ; and the further fact, that 

the magnetizer restores the person to his usual 

state, in the same way as you demagnetize a 

" Horse-Shoe Magnet," proves the existence of 

Electricity in the System, and that. Electrically, 

the brain is constructed on the principle of the 

" Horse-Shoe Magnet." The wonderful power of 

Electricity, we all know. The lightning's flash 

admonishes us in that regard. And now, is there 

a great deal of Electricity in the Human System? 

Let the following, from the Albany Daily Knick- 

erhocker^ of April 28, 1853, answer the question. 

I will only add, that these experiments were made 

in some of the most intelligent households in the 

city of Albany, as I happen to know from the best 

authority : — 

"Amusement for the Women Folks. — The readers 
of the Knickerbocker who use gas can successfully perform 
an experiment which will prove amusing, if not surprising, 
to those who have never witnessed it. The gas can be 
lighted by frictional electricity, excited by a lady's ordi- 
nary fur muff. Thus — place four tumblers upside down, 
upon the floor or carpet, and upon these lay a board or 
other substance, to stand upon, within reach of the burner. 
Upon this insulated board let a person stand, and a second 
person take the muff and rub it a number of times down the 
back of the coat of the first, by which he or she (if it be a 
lady with a woolen shawl on) will become charged with 
electricity sufficiently to light the gas with the tip of a fin- 



ELECTRICITY IS ABUNDANT. 191 

ger, as effectually as if done with an ignited raatch. To 
perform the experiment well it requires three persons, one 
to turn on and off the gas, for if done by the person insula- 
ted and charged, he will not only catch a shock, but dis- 
charge the electricity before applying it to the gas. A 
number of persons can participate in the amusement, at the 
same time, by insulating themselves, and joining hands. 
Let the friction of the muff be applied to the person fur- 
therest from the burner, until all become charged, and the 
person at the other extreme can light the gas, all feeling a 
sensible shock, at the time of ignition or discharge of the 
fluid." 

Can there be a doubt then, that here is an agen- 
cy, which, acted on by the mind which is the power 
of the Human Constitution, affects our daily con- 
dition ? If there is no doubt of that, would'nt it 
be a'^good plan to know something about it, even 
if the principles of ciphering should be taught, 
and so we cipher a little less 1 And what sort of 
a figure does that man or woman cut, who offers 
to teach a school, and does not know anything 
about the relations of Electricity to the Body and 
the Mind? Let the New-York State Normal 
School answer that question. 



" The man who takes hold of the present and 
makes the future, doe* even better than he who 

RECORDS THE PAST. — [Great applause.]" "Mr. Tom- 

linson's" speech at the celebration of the first Semi-Centen- 
nial Anniversary of the New-York Historical Society, Nov. 
20, 1854— as given in the N. Y. Tribune of the 21st. 



118. ScHooLHooD, now, is war on Vitality ; and 
what of vitality is not extinguished, is cramped 



192 ABOUT DEVELOPMENT. 



and moulded into fixed shape in this machine, 
called a School. So we have machine Lawyers 
and Doctors, Preachers and Teachers ; machine 
Farmers, and machine Mechanics ; machines in 
politics and machines in religion ; machines in 
social and domestic life — marching with guaged 
step through life, to the tune of ideas begotten in 
the brains of such men as Newton, Bacon, 
Brougham, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay and Web- 
ster, with the same sense of the vitality of those 
ideas as the mill- stones have of the nutrition of 
the corn which passes through them into meal. 

Why is this so ? Because they do not Reason 
when in School. There^ they take the School- 
master's say : and hence, through life, they do 
what they are fitted to do — follow the say of other 
Schoolmasters. 



119. About Development. Size is one of the 
elements of power, in the Human Constitution. 
Our present School Policy of Six Hours a Day, 
diminishes the size to which the scholars would 
otherwise attain, and so far diminishes power. It 
is the same as with a steam-engine. Vitality is 
the steam — the power — of the System. One 
steam engine is 4 horse power — another 10. Why? 
Because one is larger than another — you can 
make more steam in it. In this case, size is the 



SIX HOURS MAKES ONE-HORSE POWERS. 193 

exact measure, for both are made not only on the 
same models, but of exactly the same material, and 
of the same quality. As it is with the steam-engine, 
so it is with man : as it is with the manufacture 
of steam, so it is with the manufacture of Human 
Power : all other things being equal, Size is the 
measure of power. Six Hours School a Day, pre- 
vents the Vital Organs from growing big enough 
to make men and women of 10 horse power, so 
they have to be content wdth 4 horse. The 
Growth, and consequently, the Size, of boys and 
girls, can be determined by the treatment we give, 
as well as those of calves and lambs and colts. 
Six Hours School a Day makes One Horse PoAvers. 
We now know nothing of the majesty of human 
power in its calm, repose^ or in its lightning energy. 
We don't know anything about human develop- 
ment : about Manhood and Womanhood. It is all 
half way work, and " I guess so," " May be so" : 
little indeed of that mental power that knows a 
thing is so, because it knows exactly why it is so, 
and, " calm as a summer's morning," knows of no 
shock of elements that can disturb its position, 
after asserting it. How much do we know, in 
our country, of such development 1 And why 
not ? Because, in attempting to rear the super- 
structure of character by mental development, we 

9 



191: REST IS AN INSTITUTION. 

do as the Egyptians would have done, if, in build- 
ing their Pyramids, they had reversed the order, 
and put what is now the apex at the bottom. 
Mentality is the apex, not the substratum of the 
human constitution : it is the last, not the first. 
We go at the mind, as though it was the begin- 
ning, middle and end, of human development : 
the all in all. But this is not true. The mani- 
festation of mind depends on the body. We may 
disregard it, just as long as we please, by having 
School Six Hours a Bay, instead of Three ; and 
we can just so long continue to be content with a 
race of men and women of One Horse power. 



120. Rest, is an institution. Its laws may be 
disregarded, but not evaded. The " pound of 
flesh" they will have, for it is so " nominated in 
the bond." And Rest was not designed by the 
Architect of our beautiful Nature, merely for the 
restoration of our exhausted energies ; for " ex- 
hausted energy" is a libel on that Nature, when- 
ever and wherever it occurs. Rest was designed 
as a state for the free and spontaneous and exuber- 
ant play of the natural forces: as the season in 
wliich to accumulate a Surplus of power, which 
shall strike telling and effective blows in the hour 
of effort. Such is the natural law of human rest 
and human action — trampled under foot as it is, 



ACTION 13 BEGOTTEN BY DESIRE. 195 

in derogation and desecration of their own God- 
like natures, as well by the Head- Workers as the 
Hand- Workers, in our country. Man now comes 
as near beauty and perfection of development, as 
would the budding rose, were it pressed to the 
earth under a flat stone. And yet every unmis- 
takable symptom of fatality to wisely founded 
hopes, is made the theme of fireside eulogy ; and 
the innocent victim is goaded on by the intoxica- 
ting cup of flattery, till the lambent flame of vi- 
tality serves but to light, to the observer, the 
wreck that has been made. Parents ! I ad- 
monish you, that Best is an Institution. 

Now let us see what is the law of mental eflfort. 
If we can find that out, we can tell about how 
much effort will be wise. The mental faculties 
are all involuntary in their action, as much so as 
the lungs, or heart, or stomach, or liver, except 
the Faculties of Causality and Comparison, or the 
Reasoning Faculties. Now, what prompts these 
Involuntary Faculties, on which all impressions 
are made, to action ? — and what gives them energy 
and power ? It is desire. God has secured the 
well-being of the individual, and of society, by 
making happiness reside in activity of the Facul- 
ties. It follows, that Energy and Power will con- 
tinue so long as desire continues — and no longer. 
Then it follows ^ that what work a scholar wants to 



196 DULL CHILDREN. 

doj is profitable — and that none other is. It is 
spontaneous desire, tliat gives these Faculties 
Power : when the Desire to act is gone. Power is 
gone. And it forever remains true — for it is a 
law — that the exercise ofmind^ because the individ- 
ual desires to exercise itj is the only profitable ex- 
ercise. 

121. Dull Children. — Some of the most emi- 
nent men of ages were remarkable only for dulness in their 
youth. Sir Isaac Newton in his boyhood was inattentive 
to his study, and ranked very low in school until the age of 
twelve. When Samuel Wythe, the Dublin Schoolmaster, 
attempted to educate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, he pro- 
nounced the boy an " incorrigible dunce." The mother of 
Sheridan fully concurred in this verdict, and declared him 
the most stupid of her sons. Goldsmith was dull in his 
youth, and Shakspeare, Gibbon, Davy, and Dryden do not 
appear to have exhibited in their childhood even the com- 
mon elements of future success. 

When Berzelius, the eminent Swedish chemist, left school 
for the university, the words, " Indifferent in behaviour 
and of doubtful hope," were scored against his name; and 
after he entered the university, he narrowly escaped being 
turned back. On one of his first visits to the laboratory, 
when nineteen years old, he was taunted with the inquiry 
whether he * ' imderstood the difference between a labora- 
tory and a kitchen." Walter Scott had the credit of hav- 
ing " the thickest skull iia the school," though Dr. Blair 
told the teacher that many bright rays of future genius 
shone throug-h that same " thick skull." 

Milton and Swift were justly celebrated for stupidity in 
childhood. The great Isaac Barrow's father used to say- 
that, if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, 
he hoped it might be Isaac, as the least promising. Cal- 
vius, the great mathematician of his age, was so stupid in 
his boyhood, that his teachers could make nothing- of him 
till they tried him in geometry. Carraci, the celebrated 
painter, was so inapt in his youth, that his masters advised 
him to restrict his ambition to the grinding of colors. 

" One of the most popular authoresses of the present 
day," says an English writer, '' could not read when she 



TEACHERS THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE. 197 

was seyen. Her mother was rather uncomfortable about it, 
but said, as everybody did learn, with opportunity, she 
supposed her child would do so at last. By eighteen, the 
apparently slow genius paid the heavy but inevitable debts 
of her fatiher from the profits of her first work, and, before 
thirty, had published thirty volumes." Dr. Scott, the 
commentator, could not compose a theme when twelve 
years old; and even at a later age, Dr. i\dam Clark, after 
incredible effort, failed to commit to memory a poem of a 
few stanzas only. At nine years of a^e, one who after- 
wards became a Chief Justice in this country, was, during 
a whole winter, unable to commit to memory the little poem 
found in one of our school books. — Journal of Education. 



122. Teachers. — The Voluntary Principle. — 
Folly of the People.^ and its Fruits. — How are 
Teachers now managed, and how are they treat- 
ed? They are managed as you would an iron 
turning-lathe, which is constructed and worked 
on the principle of cutting oJBT so much every time 
the shaft of the lathe goes round. That is the 
present idea of a School Teacher. That he is a 
machine, the same as an iron turning- lathe is a 
machine. That he is to turn out children, just as 
the iron lathe turns out specimens of iron and 
brass. I infer the idea, from the way he is used. 
I infer the cause, from the effect. The people 
treat School Teachers just as they do any piece of 
wooden or iron machinery — they treat their 
children as they would an iron bolt to be turned 
— keep them in the machine so long, and then 
call them finished — and therefore it is fair to infer 
that they regard them as machines -, or, Parents 



198 LET THE TEACHER BE FREE, 

being reasoning animals, would not treat them 
as machines. Now, I protest against this whole 
thing. I insist that a Teacher is a rational being. 
That he is a being of impulses. That he is a be- 
ing of affections. That he is capable of ambition, 
of pride, of hope, of sorrow and of joy : — and of 
despair, as well. That he is a reasoning animal. 
That, with all those qualifications, it is absolutely 
NECESSARY to the highest development of the 
Teacher's poAvers — to his highest success — that he 
act on the Voluntary Principle. That you set 
him to work, and dismiss him when you choose 
— he is of course to leave when he chooses — and 
that you then let him manage the school as he 
pleases. He takes the responsibility. He is to 
meet it, or fail to meet it. He is to gain honor, 
or dishonor. He is to stay, or to remain. He is 
sure to be kept, if he does well — to leave, if he 
does not. Before him, on one hand, are honor and 
good-will and profit, as the prize ; on the other, 
failure, loss, and pity. On one hand, is great re- 
ward — on the other, great loss. On one hand, 
Hope — on the other. Despair. On one hand, Joy 
— on the other. Sorrow. How will the Teacher act? 
He will act with a will — with a purpose. He 
will act with telling energy, for his actions will 
come from the elastic and powerful and life-giving 
promptings of his own nature. The proof of 



''and then responsible. 199 

what he does, or what he does not do, will be 
found in the quality of his work. If at 3 o'clock, 
he finds, from the state of his own feelings or 
health, or from that of the scholars generally, 
that the school had better be dismissed, he does 
so.* If, at another time, he wishes to take the 
children into the fields, for the purpose of talking 
to them about the works of Nature and their 
laws, he will do so. Why '? Because he thinks 
it best. It is done on his own responsibility. 
The parents and those who pay him, are to judge 
of him, by what he accomplishes., not by how he 
has done it. He is free as air : he soars like the 
eagle, and with the eagle's strength. 

How is it now 1 You have him in at 9 — there he 
must stay 6 allotted hours, nolens volens; that is, 
whether his will or his judgment say he must stay 
there. And he must hear just so many lessons, 
everyday : as if Jeems and Jane " did not read but 
once," this afternoon, the thing is to be looked into 
— a " blow up" had — and if the " Master" does that 
again, he will " walk Spanish." And the school- 
master hears "Jeems" and Jane, as regularly as the 
ticking of the clock, and all is well. And so on. 
If he goes through the mechanical round as the iron 
turning-lathe does, and nothing outrageous is 



* Note. — This was written May 9, 1852 — three months before I set 
out on Three Hours School a Day. 



200 NO TWO SHOULD TEACH ALIKE. 

done, why, the Teacher goes on to the end of his 
engagement, and all is satisfactory — leaving the 
children, it may be, as well as he found them ; 
may be not. What is there to call out his powers 
here '? How can they be called out 1 You might 
as well expect of the horse on the wheel of the 
tread-mill, the graceful and powerful antics of 
the free ranger on the lawn, as that a Teacher, 
thus working by the guage of a machine, set by 
yourself, can or will manifest the living and won- 
derful energy, which free. Voluntary Action, 
alone can give, and is almost sure to develope. 
Give him his own work to do. Make him re- 
sponsible. Let him do it in his own time, and in 
his own way. The magnetic bond of reciprocal 
interest and good-Avill, then binds him to you ; — 
not the heavy, galling fetters of Slavery. 

No two persons can teach alike, and teach well ; 
for there are no two who are alike in Tempera- 
ment and Organization. But the only point I 
wish to present, is the amazing difference in 
STRENGTH, bctwecn the Voluntary and the Coer- 
cive Principles in human action. 



123. Genius and Talent. — Genius originates : 
Talent acts on what has been originated. Genius 
invents and explores : Talent gathers up and pro- 
fits. Genius is poor : Talent is rich. Genius 



MERRIMENT IN SCHOOL. 201 

creates resourceSj where, to the eye of mere talent, 
nothing is to be seen. Genius is inspiration : 
Talent is calculation. Genius knows by intui- 
tion : Talent, by seeing and reasoning. Genius 
declares : Talent investigates. Genius pronoun- 
ces : Talent reasons. Genius flouts experience : 
Talent swears by it. 

124. Mirthfulness— Merriment — Laughter. — Na - 
ture has provided the Faculties and the function. 
Therelbre, Laughter, Merriment, Mirthfulness, 
are wise. Grown up people go to hear a grown 
up man Lecture, and if he says any thing witty, 
odd, or grotesque, they will laugh, and stamp, 
and clap their hands, interrupting all proceedings 
and thought by their uproarious noise and confu- 
sion. And if the Lecturer happen to make them 
laugh a great many times and very loudly or ex- 
cessively, so that the waistbands of the men and 
the belts of the women, if not their ribs, are in 
danger, why, the Lecturer will stand a good 
chance to be puffed as the very best of the season : 
while the poor children in the wooden prisons 
called school houses, must not laugh once in ten 
years ! 

When did Nature make this difference between 

children under five feet high, and children over 

five feet high 1 Never. Both, then, cannot be 
9* 



202 IS ART WISER THAN NATURE 1 

Nature. Is either of these Nature? If either, 
which? This question ought to be answered. 
But suppose we say that the action of the tall 
children at the Lecture Room, is Nature. Are we 
to infer that the frigid, rigid and frozen manner 
of the School Room, is begotten by the idea that 
Nature can be improved on ? Is the conceit in- 
dulged that here. Art can be wiser than Nature '? 
I am not talking with those who have never ta- 
ken even a peep at civilization, and who really 
believe that man was born into the world to fight 
Nature, and not to obey her, and so think they 
are doing God service in tormenting the life out 
of children, by scolding, and looking, and whip- 
ping their arms and legs and lungs and tongues 
into a state " as still as death." I wonder it 
never occurred to these people to put a flat stone 
on the heads of the innocents. If the conduct 
here set forth of the old folks is Nature, then we 
are to follow that ; if that of the young folks be 
Nature, we are to follow that : " If the Lord be 
God, follow him : but if Baal, then follow him." 
No Teacher is fit for his charge, who does not 
once in a while bring out uproarious laughter 
from the whole School, wOiich will shake every 
cobweb out of them. It is true, that a jaded 
pack-horse, under the Six Hours a Day System, 
can hardly be expected to excite the Faculty of 



KALEIDOSCOPE PHILOSOPHERS. 203 

Mirtlifulness, because Ms own is below par. Let 
him do tbe best he can. It is a mistake, that it is 
" vulgar" to laugh — to laugh right out — to laugh 
loud — to laugh good and strong : to laugh till you 
get over it. It is " vulgar" only in Miss Nancys 
to laugh : it is proper that they should only smile, 
or rather simper. There is more uplifting of the 
Moral Nature, in one good hearty laugh, than in 
all the frowns that have been exhibited on the 
brows of stolid Selfishness since Adam and Eve 
left the garden. 



125. Kaleidoscope Philosophers, It is claimed 
that Locke, and Reid, and Brown, and Stuart, 
and Abercrombie, are Mental Philosophers. Their 
writings are dignified with the title of Mental Phi- 
losophy. Their books are taught from in all the 
Colleges, Academies, and Universities, and High 
Schools, and Select Schools in the country ; and 
the labor the teachers and scholars perform over 
them, are styled " exercises in Mental Philoso- 
phy." Now I propose to say that this is all a 
farce — a humbug. I undertake to say that 
neither of these men ever wrote a System of Men- 
tal Philosophy. What is Philosophy ? It is Nat- 
ural Law. How do you ascertain JVatural Law ? 
In only one way. By observing facts. By ob- 
servation of facts by different men. When they 



204 THE MIND GOVERNED BY FIXED LAWS. 

find that in a great number of cases, the same 
facts are attended by certain other facts — that 
certain things invariably produce certain other 
things — we then infer and declare that such is the 
Natural Law. That such is the mode in which 
Nature acts. Now, the Human Mind is govern- 
ed by laws as fixed as those which govern Soda 
and Acid, or red hot iron. Yet when or where, 
did Locke, Reid, Brown, Stuart, or Abercrombie, 
in such a manner as above described, ascertain 
the first law of the human mind 1 Never ! If so, 
how could they disagree ? Do men disagree as to 
the natural laws of Soda and Acid ? — one of whose 
laws, every one has seen so often demonstrated to 
the eminent delight of his hot and parched throat 1 
Not at all. Yet why do we not have Locke's, 
Reid's, Stuart's, Brown's, and Abercrombie's 
Systems of Soda and Acid^ as well as Locke's, 
Reid's, Stuart's, Brown's, and Abercrombie's 
Systems of Mental Philosophy 1 Can there be two 
contradictory Truths in reference to the human 
mind, any more than with reference to acid and 
soda? Can there be two different Systems of 
Mental Philosophy, and each be true 1 These men 
differ in their so-called Systems^ each from all the 
rest : and while by no possibility can more than 
one be true, the fact is, that all are false. They 
are not Inductive Philosophers . They are Kaleido- 



MODE OF KALEIDOSCOPE PHILOSOPHERS. 205 

scope Philosophers. A Kaleidoscope is an in- 
strument like a section of a spy- glass tube, and is 
SO made, — I don't know liow — that if you turn it, 
either more or less, a million of times, a changed 
combination of colors will appear. This represents 
precisely Messrs. Locke, Stuart, Keid, JBrown, 
Abercromeie, and all the rest of that School, in the 
manufacture of what they and their disciples 
term the " Philosophy of the Human Mind." 
One of them takes a look at this or these facts in 
the operation of the Human Mind. That is to 
say, he turns up his Kaleidoscope or Organization 
of Involuntary Faculties, and then takes a peep 
through it with his Intellectual Faculties. He 
finds things so and so : being a logical man, he 
reasons on the Figures as they appear in his Ka- 
leidoscope, and comes to such and such inevitable 
conclusions. Those conclusions are salted away 
as so much Mental Philosophy, "by John Locke." 
And so John Locke goes on for twenty years, 
more or less — and in this way manufactures a 
" System of Mental Philosophy, by John Locke." 
And then along comes Reid, Brown, Stuart, &c. 
One of them takes a look at the same facts that 
Locke looked at on the first trial, through the 
Kaleidoscope or Organization of his own Invol- 
untary Faculties, which is very different from 
that of Mr. Locke's ; when lo ! the Figures are 



206 THE PREMISES OF NO TWO ALIKE. 

different! The Kaleidoscope lias taken a turn, 
and the Figures are changed ! The logic of our 
new man being as sound and vigorous as the logic 
of Mr. Locke, our new manufacturer of Mental 
Philosophy is necessarily impelled to a different 
conclusion from Mr. Locke's. And so on, to a 
million : each Kaleidoscope of Human Faculties 
would be found differing as the Figures differ 
in the Kaleidoscope proper : and consequently the 
writings of no one can be taken or regarded as Phi- 
losophy. Each one arrives at results different 
from the others. It could not possibly be other- 
wise. All they can do — all they pretend to do — 
all they want to do — is each to look at mankind 
through his own Kaleidoscope. And so they go 
on, taking observations, with great patience, and 
when they get a Book full, each calls his own 
work a " System of Mental Philosophy" ! — ^the 
different " Philosophies" being necessarily as dis- 
cordant as the original combinations in the seve- 
ral Kaleidoscopes which produced them, were 
dissimilar. 

In a word, in this School for the manufacture 
of Philosophy of the Human Mind from the Im- 
pressions OF THE Manufacturer, each one looks 
through his own Kaleidoscope for his Premises. 
Each one's Kaleidoscope differs from that of each 
and all the rest. Then, if the Reasoning Facul- 



CULTIVATE MUSIC. 207 

ties of all be sound, it inevitably follows tbat the 
" Philosophy" of each must differ from the " Phi- 
losophy" of every one of the others. 

These men, some of them, were men whose 

mighty mental powers filled the world. Most of 
them wrote before the Science of Man was discov- 
ered. They made magnificent use of their own 
gigantic powers, according to the lights mankind 
then had. 



126. He related an anecdote to show the difier- 
ence in bringing: up of people in America and Europe. Not 
long since, in Boston, a very corpulent woman wanted to 
get into an omnibus, but finding it impossible to get through 
the door of the vehicle, she gave up the idea, and Washing- 
ton street roared with laughter for a quarter of a mile. As 
a contrast, a very corpulent lady of Paris was anxious to 
go to the Opera. She knew that it would be hard work to 
get through the door of the opera house. She had her valet 
in front to pull, and her maid behind to push. There were 
thousands in the Opera house to witness the scene, but no 
one laughed — not even a smile could be seen upon a single 
face . Verily, the Opera- was better educated than Wash- 
ington street. — From sketch of Wendell Phillips' Lec- 
ture, at Syracuse, Nov. 24, 1854, on the " Social Life of 
Europe." 



127. Cultivate Music. — Music is the soul of 
war — of the battle field. In half-civilized coun- 
tries like the United States and England, War 
could not be carried on without Music. It exerts 
a magic power. Martial music, so-called, stirs 
the blood to deeds of daring. Now, let Music do 
its almost omnipotent work in the other direction. 
Time, and Tune, and Nerves, are there. Let the 



208 WORD AND STYLE EDUCATION. 

flute, the harp, the violin, and whatever instru- 
ment, and above all the voice, be cultivated to 
the utmost, in School and out of School, — first, 
last and in the middle : that is, along with the 
other powers. It will do for Brotherhood, what 
Martial Music does for the devil. 

The Albany Daily Knickerbocker^ of Nov. 30, 
1854, takes this view of the matter ; — " If you 
" would keep spring in your heart, learn to sing. 
" There is more merit in melody than most peo- 
" pie have any idea of. A cobbler who smoothes 
" his wax ends with a song, will do as much work 
" in a day, as a cordwainer given to ^ ill-nature 
" and cursing' Avould effect in a week. Songs 
"are like sunshine, they run to cheerfulness, and 
" so fill the bosom with buoyancy that for the 
" time being, you feel like a yard of June, or a 
" meadow full of bobolinks. Try it on." 



128. Whip children^ and make them feel mad, 
and bad, and cross, and ugly, in order to make 
them kind and good ! 

129. Word and Style Education, — The devotion 
of youth to acquiring a knowledge of words from 
the " roots" to the branches, and in " polishing," 
as it is called, the manner in which they shall be 
used, reminds me of a man who would spend a 



TEACHER MUST BE JOYOUS. 209 

life on a casket, and at the end be destitute of 
treasure to deposit in it. How much more beau- 
tiful is a diamond in a rough setting, than a 
pomace stone set in pearl '? 



130. Superiority of Self-Made Men.-— Two rea- 
sons : The necessity of Self- Action, gives more of 
it. It is Self- Action alone that educates or 
strengthens. And the other reason is, they fol- 
low the impulses of their own nature, in what 
they do, and in what they don't do. 



131. Little Kindnesses.— We can not often do a 
great favor. We can do small ones. Little 
kindnesses are the flowers which make our path- 
way through life redolent of delight. 



132. Prison Uniform. — ^Visited Auburn Prison, 
to-day, October 20, 1851. It always makes me 
feel indignant to see the striped " uniform" of the 
prisoners — it is so mean. It is like spitting on a 
man after you have knocked him down. 



133. What MUST a Teacher he ? — It is not every 
person who is fit, or who can be made fit by any 
possible training, to be a Teacher. To be a real 
Teacher, he or she must have that physical and 
mental development that makes them feel plea- 



210 COMMENDATION. 

sant and joyous. If they are so, they will delight 
to see the children pleasant and joyous. If not, 
not. It is a principle of human nature that we 
like to see people in the plight we are. If we are 
down-hearted, sad, and half-miserable, we can 
not enjoy in others the sport, the joyous life, the 
free spirit, the gladsome eye, and the beaming, 
exuberant smile which seems to dance through 
every fibre and pulsation of the System. Unless 
we feel so ourselves, we can not enjoy this : and 
therefore, unless we feel so, we shall not make 
others feel so. There should be no " let up " on 
this point, with those who employ a Teacher — ^for 
Three Hours School a Bay, I mean. 



134. It is to make men — not to stuff them- 
that we want schools. 



135. Children at 3 to 10 years old, should be 
like our ideas of " Aldermen" — so fat as to be 
rather clumsy. 



136. Commendation. — How few Parents and 
Teachers there are, who realize the magic power 
of Commendation ! It is indeed magical ! It is 
the electric spark which fires the souls of the 
young, to most devoted and cheerful effort, in 
labor or in correct conduct. It magnetizes them, 



HOW TO WRITE A SPEECH. 211 

and fastens them to you. Not a set speech. Do 
they fail on a thing 1 Ask them to do it over 
again. " That's nice" ! They are paid ! — they 
are gratified : they are filled with joy and hope, 
and will try to do it better next time. 

137. How to Write a Speech. — How to Write 
that horror of Schools, a " Composition,'''^ — Suppose 
I tell those who don't know, how to write an ad- 
dress, with ease and power, and with little of pain 
to their hearers. First, know something about 
the subject. No matter, if you have known 
something about it, and have had thoughts about 
it, for years. It won't hurt you. It won't endanger 
your complete success. Indeed, the very fact 
that you know something of the matter yourself, 
will even enhance the probability of your instruct- 
ing, and therefore interesting, others. Thus pre- 
pared, the how to write it, is the question — and a 
vital question with those who don't know ; and 
the want of knowing, has, as is expressed in a 
certain vernacular, lost to the world a "power" of 
good, solid ideas. Ideas are like bullets. The 
spot they reach — the execution they do — depends 
very much on how they are sent. And the brain 
is very much like a gun — it goes oif very much as 
it is charged. Not to carry the analogy any 
further, I will say, that the charge of the brain 



212 WRITE DOWN IDEAS INSTANTER. 

for sending forth an idea, is strongest, the first in- 
stant you are conscious it is loaded with it. You 
say, then, fire it off immediate!)^ if you intend to 
hit the mark or kill the game. So I say. If you 
don't, ten to one, it will " fall" from the line of 
'' sight," and hit below the mark, or if it hits, 
will never reach a vital point, and kill your 
game — even if the game be Falsehood. You have 
determined to write an Address. Very well. 
From the hour the determination is formed, keep 
pencil and paper within reach — in your pockets, 
always. When you first wake in the morning — 
while dressing — ^as you come in to your meals — 
while at your meals — on a walk — ^after talking on 
the subject — at and after any thing which occa- 
sions a change in your regular routine of business, 
aye, at any time, you will be liable to find some 
" stray" thoughts, as those who do not understand 
the business, still call them, ^"^ running through 
your head" on the subject. Rely on it, they are 
the pure coin ; nor are they astray ; so pocket them 
at once, by putting them, if possible, instantly on 
paper, without any plan, except " first come, first 
served" — ^and keep on at that, till you find your 
hand stop, then you stop. Stop the instant you 
have no more to say, and go off whistling about 
your business. Throw what you have got inyonr 
drawer. Go on, and on — never thinking of what 



FAME. 213 

you have written — -when you write^ I mean — and 
keep on, till you are compelled to fix your speech 
in the shape you are to read it. You will have a 

heap~AND IT WILL BE A HEAP OF LIVE THOUGHTS. 

It will be as well — ^better — if when you are put- 
ting the materials together you are under some 
kind of pressure, to excite, and therefore to exalt 
the power s~^as for instance, the fact that the paper 
must be ready in a brief space of time. This wijl 
So arouse the involuntary or impressible powers, 
as to inspire with their original life and freshness 
the ideas that you had written, and give your 
mind that interest which will make it capable of 
new impressions — associations — combinations ; 
while you will have the benefit of your intellect 
to sit in judgment on your work, as you go along. 
But don't alter much. 



13S. Fame. — The pursuit of Fame, is like 
climbing a side-hill of hot-ashes : the higher you 
get, the hotter and dryer the ashes become, and 
on them you must feed, and the stifling air you 
must breathe — for the Moral Faculties alone fur- 
nish nourishment for the soul, or moisture to 
slake its thirst. These, are unknown on the ash- 
hill of Fame. 

To change the figure, the moment the sound of 
applause dies on the ear of the devotee of Fame 



214 HOW TO MANAGE A SCHOOL. 

for the last time, the music of that soul ceases 
forever; for the chords attuned to eternal har- 
mony, set to the key of the " still, small voice," 
have never been strung. Those who live for 
Fame, feed on wind ; and ever and ever, pant in 
vain for one drop of living water to cool their 
parched, shrivelled, shrunken souls. 



^139. '^ Mystery^^ of Managing a School. — Some 
think there is a wonderful mystery about Manag- 
ing (" governing" is the usual word) a School : — 
that the truths on which skill and complete suc- 
cess rest, lie down deep in a well, a look at which 
can rarely be obtained by any. This is all a 
mistake. There is not one particle of mystery 
about the matter. The Children will treat you pre- 
cisely as you treat them. Like excites Like. 
That's the whole of it — only you will not believe 
It, it is so simple. If you get up a quarrel with 
them, they will get up a quarrel with you. If 
you are dictatorial and overbearing, they will 
oppose you in the same spirit, and torment you 
in every way they can. If you are cross, they 
will be cross. But if you are courteous, polite, 
kind, mirthful, manly, respectful, just, firm, dig- 
nified, forbearing, — treating them precisely as you 
wish them to treat you — -you will inevitably get the 
same back again— ;/rom Childhood. When you 



LIKE EXCITES LIKE. 215 

mix acM and soda in water, you know they will 
effervesce. Just so sure, just so absolutely cer- 
tain, is it, that whatever facvlties you exert on 
another'' s mindj will be aroused to activity in that 
person's mind. It does not make any difference 
whether the party acted on, be six or sixty — the 
result will be the same, because the faculties are 
the same, and the laws of mind are the same, at 
both periods. Here, lies the fatal error : Many 
Parents and Teachers — as we are bound to infer 
from the course they take — seem to suppose that 
children are a sort of " machine," different from 
" human" people. Is not this so 1 Do they treat 
any body else as they treat children '? Certainly 
not. Take the whole rigmarole of a modern 
School, and is there any thing else like it in the 
history of the whole creation 1 Would grown up 
children stand such nonsense and imprisonment 1 
The children are turned out, all " finished," 
" fitted" for the business and concerns of life ; yet 
where else in " life," do we find them under the 
stolid surveillance, the petty drill, machine atti- 
tudes and evolutions'? Is it to be found any 
where else in the whole " bivouac of life 1" No 
where! Yet this farce, is nick-named "fitting 
people for the active sphere of life"(!) Learn or 
fit a man to do a thing by doing something else ! 
That is, if you want to learn a man how to make 



216 FATAL ERROR IN MENTAL SCIENCE. 

horse-shoes, set him to crimping boots ! That is 
the logic of the present School System of America ! 
But, I introduce this here, merely as an illustra- 
tion or proof that people treat childhood as any 
thing hut a real live sample of human nature. 
By their actions, at the fireside and the School, 
they seem to think Childhood something else : to 
be MANAGED ou totally different principles. In 
general, — so far as control or management is con- 
cerned — the starting idea, seems to be, that chil- 
dren are a set of devils. That the only true way, 
is to put yourself at the outset on watch for devil- 
try ; — indeed, in the first place, you tell them you 
think they are devils, that you expect they will 
so act, and that you are prepared accordingly. 
Then, whenever successful in "developing any 
resources" of that sort, by this system of " pros- 
pecting," as they say in California, you treat them 
as dumb beasts, and whip it out of them — as you 
say : I say not. I say you develope it yourself, 
directly, and then whip it in. 

This prodigious folly, arises from a prodigious 
error in Mental Science. All the Faculties at 6 
are as well developed as at 60 — except the Intel- 
lect, and one appetite. The Passions — save one 
— the social affections — the appetites — the selfish 
sentiments — the moral sentiments — are all active, 
keen, strong, as easily and as inevitably arous- 



AN ERROR, THE CURSE OF CHILDREN. 217 

ed, at six as at sixty ; and are governed by 
the same Laws. The same actions cm them, will 
produce the same effects precisely at one period 
in life, as at the other. The grand and fatal 
error has been, in supposing that the Intel- 
lect — which from its nature and design is calcula- 
ted and intended to have power only by exercise 
— is not in Childhood fully developed, and that the 
Passions and Sentiments and Affections are in 
the same state of imperfect development. Let 
the reader study this idea. Whether Parent, or 
Teacher, or neither, it will pay him. It is the 
error which underlies the mountain curse which 
rests on the poor innocents, in the " government" 
of Parents and Teachers. Do you know how to 
approach your neighbor, if you wish to get him to 
do a certain thing, or act in a certain way 1 Then 
you know how to approach a child. Do you 
know how any body must approach you in order 
to produce any given result on your mind ? Then 
you know how to approach a child. It is the In- 
tellect, only, of the child that is not fully devel- 
oped : though that is wide awake. The Faculties 
which stimulate to action, are perfect — ^in full 
force and vigor — many of them as perfect in the 
cradle, even, as on the forum or in the shop. 
And, in one sense, these Faculties are more perfect 

10 



218 SHAM RESPECT, ALWAYS A FAILURE. 

in childhood and youth than in grown up people ; 
for they are as yet comparatively unperverted by 
the crooks and turns and falsehoods of Selfishness. 
Like excites Like, at Six, and at Sixty ! 



140. Teacher's or Parenfs Conduct — How the 
Scholar separates the Sham from the Real. — If you 
treat a child or youth with profound respect and 
consideration^ he will treat you in the same way. 
But there must be no sham about it. There can 
be "no cheating round" this board. Respect is a 
feeling : what is meant by "consideration," here, 
is feeling. Now I have no doubt at all, that when 
we address ourselves to another, that there is a 
direct electrical communication established in- 
stantly between the Faculties we exercise, and 
the same faculties in the other. This is the rea- 
son why we know instinctively when another is 
attempting to " play possum" with us in matters 
of feeling. The Intellect, which has no feeling, 
attempts to counterfeit the action of a Faculty 
which has ; but here the cheat is detected at 
once, for there is no electrical communication with 
the faculty of feeling in you, and therefore that is 
not impressed. So it will be with you, if your 
apparent respect and consideration for the scholar 
be not real. This has caused hundreds to pro- 
nounce their attempts — and all attempts^" to 



RIGHTS OF THE SCHOLAR. 219 

govern by Kindness, a failure," Of course they 
were a failure. They started to ^'govern,'^^ to be- 
gin with; and such patronizing "kindness" as 
they dealt out to their " subjects," would be very 
likely to freeze a Greenlander, instead of thawing 
a Yankee boy or girl. And so they failed ! Of 
course they did. The power of kindness did not 
fail, for it can not fail : but the counterfeit did. 
The idea never once entered their heads, that the 
scholars were their I^quals, and were therefore to 
be treated as equals ; that the Right of the scholar 
to all the respectful courtesies and amenities of 
life, /rom the Teacher ^ is equal to the Right of the 
Teacher to the same from the scholar. Conse- 
quently to all this, in his experimental course of 
wiiat he terms '^governing by kindness," he actu- 
ally exercises no injlueiice whatever over or with the 
scholars. So he sagely concludes that scolding, 
thumping, and whipping, is the true system after 
all, as his experience (!) has demonstrated the 
folly of the other course. 

The Faculties exercised in School management 
by the true Teacher, (the Intellect coming in, as 
a matter of course,) are Firmness, Self-Esteem, 
Approbativeness, Adhesiveness, Destructiveness, 
(vigor of execution,) Conscientiousness, Venera- 
tion, Benevolence, and Mirthfulness. These are 
all feelings : as you feel, you act : so the scholar. 



220 PHRENOLOGY TELLS YOU WHAT YOU ARE. 

He can't help it, for it is a law of his nature. 
But it is not a law of his nature that he should 
fully respond to the first appeal. It may be so 
foreign to all his experience, that his incredulity 
may withhold a response ; but nature is true, and 
your accord will be complete, if you persevere, 
and habitually treat your scholars with Firmness, 
Friendship, Justice, Dignity, Respect and Kind- 
ness. 

141. What does Phrenology pretend to do 1 To 
tell you what you are. And to what does it appeal 
for proof to youl To facts. To you, it stands 
just so far as facts uphold it. Now, can anything 
be conceived more absurd, lilliputian in brain, 
or infidel in faith, than hostility to, or denunci- 
ations of. Phrenology? God himself has declared 
Man to be his highest work. How small must be 
his respect for the Deity, who denounces and 
ridicules the study of His highest work ! What 
would be thought of the intelligent (!) man, who 
should denounce the study of the Natural History 
and Philosophy of the horse, the cat, the dog, the 
sheep, the lion, the tiger, the deer, the beaver, 
the bee? 

142. It is some satisfaction to the friends of 
Science, that its foolish opponents who refuse in- 
vestigation, cannot point to any Quality In the 
Nerve, which carries the news to the mind instant- 



SCHOOL DECIDING RIGHT AND WRONG. 221 

ly on your stepping with a bare foot on a live 
coal, or which as instantly fulfils the command of 
the mind to take the foot away. It is some 
satisfaction, that they cannot show any such 
property in a nerve ; while this is the very prop- 
erty for which Electricity is 7nosf distinguished! It 
seems to me that the opponents of the Science of 
Man, are rather fanatical in denying that Electric- 
ity is the connecting link between Mind and Mat- 
ter. 

143. Jin Odd Scene. — Suppose a boy actually 
does wrong. The whole school know it, and you 
know it. And then suppose you call to him — not 
in the barbarian, " guilty of course" style of New- 
York criminal courts, " stand up !" — but with a 
cheerful " How is this ? I want you to tell us just 
how this thing is, as you are. now presumed to 
know better than any one else." After he has 
stated the case, ask him to give his opinion of it 
— right or wrong — if either, why. It is under- 
stood, meantime, that the whole school over ten 
years old, is a court. Then you call on another 
who knows about it — he gives his facts — and 
argues it according to his view. And suppose a 
dozen should testify and argue the case. Then a 
vote of the Scholars over 10, on the right or 
wrong of the accused in this transaction. Sup- 
pose the pretty unanimous vote be, " wrong :^^ do 



223 SCHOLARS GAIN OF MORAL POWER. 

you believe that a majority would vote that any- 
thing more be done about it 1 Would you vote 
that there should? But w^ouldn't such an exhi- 
bition now be odd in a Public School of the State 
of New- York? It would not be odd long, if 
Teachers would fit themselves to teach, by the 
study of the Science of Man. In two or three 
hours, spent on such a trial, the scholars would 
gain more Moral Power, than now they ever gain 
at School. 

144. Waste of Power ^ by Teachers. — Man was 
made on an equality with his fellow-man. Each 
one has the same Faculties, and is governed by 
the same Natural Laws ; and therefore, all are on 
a platform of equality. Now, whenever this 
Platform of Equality is disturbed, evil must re- 
sult. The natural law of equilibrium has been 
upset. The one who rises above this natural 
plane, and attempts to control another^ must be un- 
happy, and the one controlled must be unhappy. 

The proposition is, that the natural relation es- 
tablished by the Deity between human beings, is 
that of equality ; and that when that relation is 
disturbed, evil results. Now, although I am not 
able to explain the manner of operation, I am 
able to say this, that all supreme exercise of the 
passions, is depressing. It lowers the vigor and 
activity of the circulation of the blood. The 



TEACHERS DEPRESS THEMSELVES. 223 

wliole tone and vigor of the body, is thereby 
lowered. I say, I can not tell how it is that this 
cause produces this result. I can only say it does 
result. As Electricity is the agent of the human 
mind ; as it is the connecting link between mind 
and matter ; as Mind is the only active power in 
the universe, and as all motion results from its 
action on Electricity; as Electricity obeys the 
Mind ; as Electricity circulates the blood in the 
human body ; I can only say, that the Supremacy 
of the Passions or Selfish Sentiments, in itself^ de- 
stroys ^Ae EQUILIBRIUM of Electricity ; and therefore, 
the influence upon the natural forces, must be to 
disturb and depress. Whereas, the Supremacy 
of the Moral Sentiments, is the condition in which 
God made man ; is the condition of harmony -, is 
the condition of Equality ; and therefore, when 
he does so act, the result is perfect equilibrium in 
all its forms — and hence, vigor, elasticity, and 
bounding energy, in the place of depression. 

Love, in all its phases, is energizing. See what 
the mother can do for weeks or months or years, 
for the sick child. See what the spiritual man or 
woman can do or endure, for love of the Deity. 
Here is Love in different forms. In each, it gives 
added power. It is the highest manifestation of 
the human faculties ; it is that which " worketh 
no evil," and therefore is in exact harmony with 



224 LOVE ENERGIZES HATE DEPRESSES. 

the design of the Deity. The Deity could not 
have had the result otherwise ; because He can 
do nothing inconsistent with himself. So, every- 
where. Love energizes : Hate, depresses. How 
do you feel, when you meet a long absent and 
loved friend, for whom your love is like that be- 
tween David and Jonathan 1 You could leap, 
you could run, you could wrestle — you could do 
any thing, which requires elasticity and vigor. 
You can talk like a bobolink. This is Law. But 
when Hate stirs the soul to its foundations — 
is in absolute Supremacy, in the form of rage — 
how is it '? Does the pallid, shrunken, rigid, as- 
pen-like man possess increased mental or bodi- 
ly power? So far from it, he is "as weak as 
water." Now this is a practical illustration of 
the operation of the principle. They are extreme 
cases, and therefore make it plain, and undenia- 
ble. 

Therefore, I will conclude by saying, that the 
principles set forth in this section, show one of 
the reasons why Teachers are so weary and ex- 
hausted by their labors. It shows that, when 
they attempt to control children by throwing away 
the principle of Equality, this consequence must 
result ; that they must be depressed, to a greater 
or less degree. But that if Benevolence, Venera- 
tion,Conscientiou3ness, Hope,Adhesiveness, Firm- 



TEACHERS WEARY ONE REASON. 225 

ness, Self-Esteem and Philoprogenitiveness are 
Supreme, they energize the System. 

If this be true, I will leave it to the determi- 
nation of the reader, whether there is, or is not, 
in the present System of control in Schools, a 
damaging waste of Moral, Social, Physical and 
Intellectual Power : And whether this is not to 
be saved by substituting the Management of 
Equality in the place of Coercive Control. 



145. How can a person teach School properly, 
who does not understand Phrenology 1 There are 
the Temperaments. He don't know any thing 
about them. They determine the power of the 
individual, and the kind of power. One is bas- 
wood, one is pine, one is maple, one is ash, one is 
hickory, another lignumvitse. He don't know 
but they are all baswood : he donH know anything 
about it. The one who understands Phrenology, 
as a matter of Science can tell you the precise 
Temperament of each one ; can give you the ope- 
ration of those temperaments ; and the effect of 
study on each, and the influence of the Tempera- 
ment in each case in inclining or not inclining the 
scholar to study and how much it will do to 
study. Then there are about Forty Faculties. 
Each one has a distinct set of Functions. Each 

10* 



226 HOW CAN WE TEACH WITHOUT PHRENOLOGY ? 

Faculty performs its own Functions. It never 
performs any other. He don't know any thing 
about all this ! These Faculties are what he is to 
work with and on, and he don't know any thing 
about them ! A law of each Faculty, is, that it 
is excited to action whenever you address it with 
the same Faculty. He don't know any thing 
a': out that ! Here is a class in History. One has 
Eventuality largely developed — another as sadly 
deficient, and has large Approbativeness. The 
Teacher gibes, ridicules, or scolds one, as the case 
may be, for his "stupid" recitations; and dis- 
courages the scholar, besides incurring his eter- 
nal hate. He knows nothing about that ! The 
scholar knows he has been faithful, and knows 
every word of the Teacher is unjust. And so 
on through the whole number of Faculties, and 
Combinations of Faculties, and the Temperaments, 
each of which requires distinct and different treat- 
ment, in its different developement. " How can a 
person teach School properly, who does not un- 
derstand Phrenology" 1 

But the beauty of it, is, that every Teacher can 
fit himself in the Science of Teaching, whether he 
live in a palace or log hovel. Combe's Constitu- 
tion of Man J Combe's Phrenology^ some of the 
Fowler's works on Temperaments^ and Dr. Dod's 
on Psychology. Read them — ^you understand as 



ALL STUDIES SHOULD PLEASE LOWELL MASON. 227 

you read, and then your School, and all other 
human beings you meet, are an open book for 
your daily study and entertainment. 



146. Lowell Mason closes a letter to the N. 
Y. Tribune of the 25th December, 1854, as fol- 
lows : — " I am most friendly to the proper intro- 
" duction of Music as a School Study, but should 
" be sorry to see it degraded to a mere means of 
" entertainment. Let music entertain, indeed, and 
" especially let it always please the pupil, yet not 
" more so than reading, or grammar, or arithme- 
" tic. All these studies should be made to please ; 
" and if they are not so treated, scmething is 
" wrong, in the teacher, or in the condition of the 
" school." 

147. There are but two Principles of human 
action : One, is Selfishness — the other, isn't. 



148. The Fowlers say, in a card : — A good 
Phrenologist, will prove it to your own conscien- 
ces, by delineating your character, talents and 
peculiarities, far more accurately than your own 
mother could do. He analyzes all the human 
elements and functions, thereby showing of what 
materials we are composed and how to develop 
them. The Hon. Horace Mann remarks :^-" I 
look upon Phrenology as the guide to philosophy 



228 PARENTS MAKE CHILDREN LAUGH. 

and the handmaid of Christianity. "Whoever dis- 
seminates true Phrenology is a public benefactor." 



149. Laughter — Again. — Don't People laugh at 
homel Good people, I mean. Bad people don't 
laugh much. Don't good parents laugh with their 
children ? Don't they make them laugh 1 Don't 
they say things, and do things, to make them 
laugh, from tickling their little sides, to telling 
them funny stories, and showing them funny pic- 
tures ? When does the heart of the father and 
mother leap for real, pure joy and thankfulness, 
as when they see John and James and Mary and 
Lizzie and Kate, gamboling like frolicksome lambs, 
their little chubby (they ought to be chubby) fa- 
ces, swelling with delight, and their ringing laugh 
making the air vocal 1 Why is all this, if it is 
not proper for children to laugh 1 And how is it 
with the grown up children, when they go to a 
Lecture — a Lecture by some famous and learned 
man 1 When he says a witty or an odd thing, are 
they not sure to laugh ? — and do they not look 
mighty good natured after it ? The Lecturer, too, 
tries to say things to make them laugh. The 
thing is so : there's no use trying to dodge it. 
Every where on the face of the footstool, people 
are to be free, easy, natural and happy, except 
in the School Room ! There, all must put on a 



EACH CHILD, HAS FACULTY OF MIRTHFULNESS. 229 

long face, as though one had been guilty of some 
crime ! — and if there is a departure from the re- 
quired length of countenance — if nature is per- 
mitted to chalk any short curves or angles in the 
face— they are sure soon to be straightened out. 
And we learn children, from the hour they enter 
these juvenile prisons to hate them, and to prize 
a release or even temporary escape from being 
shut up, as those in bondage among the Israelites 
hailed the year of Jubilee ! 

I say, therefore, that the demeanor of the Pris- 
on, and of the man-of-war quarter-deck, is not the 
proper demeanor for the School-Room. I protest 
against the whole system of Autocracy installed 
there, as a violation of God's laws, a high crime 
against Man. Will any Teacher tell me it is nec- 
essary to preserve such " Order?" So it is, for a 
tyrant or a fool: for a being in human form, 
without the sympathies or the intellect of a man. 
But the Scientific Teacher, looks out with a clear 
eye upon the beautiful handiworks of God under 
his charge, and finds that each was created with 
the Faculty of Mirthfulness. He finds that 
among the functions of that Faculty, are merri- 
ment, smiles and laughter. He finds further, 
that the exercise of those functions, acts like mag- 
ic in diffusing with vigor the electricity and blood 
equally through the System — putting it in the 



230 INFLUENCE, ENDS NOT IN THE ROOM. 

best possible working order. He finds, also, that 
the confinement of the body to that bench, and of 
the mind to that book, furnish precisely an occa- 
sion for this shaking up. And he therefore finds, 
that if, by any turn of wit or oddity, he can get a 
good, hearty laugh from the whole room, he is 
fulfilling the Order established by Deity. 

What you do to and with the child in the School 
Room, does not end there. If it did, the whole 
matter would be comparatively unimportant. 
But, always and everlastingly recollect, that Like 
BEGETS Like, in all the Mental operations of Man. 
If I did nothing by this Book, except to impress 
this Truth on all not already impressed — to make 
it ring in their ears day and night — to make it 
stand before them like a Drummond light, as a 
perpetual Monitor whenever they go to speak to 
a child, or to do any thing to it — if I only did 
that, I should be satisfied with my labors on this 
Book. Whatever Faculties you exercise, will be 
aroused to activity in the Child. Activity gives 
them strength — gives them Power. It is thus you 
make a mark on those children, never effaced till 
the grave closes over them — aye,through Eternity. 
An Engraver for Eternity, yet, from ignorance, 
will deface his tablet ! Not many knowingly will 
do -hat. Then as you lay your head on the pil- 
low. Teacher, remember that Like excites Like, 



WHAT THE TEACHER NEEDS TO KNOW. 231 

in tlie World of Mind, and say whether, if there 
be any way of learning the Functions and Laws 
of each of the forty Faculties, you can afford to 
neglect its improvement. I leave it with you. 



1 50 . What is it — in a Word — that a Teacher needs 
to Know 1 — ^^Iwish^^^ said a lady friend and teacher 
to me to-day, (Aug. 17, 1851,) " you would tell me 
what you would do in School — how you would man- 
age.^^ " I cannot tell you," I replied ; " I could 
not tell till the occasion arose, what I should do." 
What a teacher needs to know, is the laws by 
which the mind and body are governed. He needs 
to understand the relations of body and mind to 
each other. He needs to understand every Fac- 
ulty, just as we understand different species of 
plants. He needs to know what each Faculty is, 
what its ofS.ce and functions are, and what it takes 
delight in doing. He needs then to know the 
laws which govern all : As, that like excites like : 
activity strengthens and inactivity weakens each 
Faculty : that the faculty which is the strongest, 
whether by nature or cultivation, governs the rest, 
and thus determines the character, &c., &c. In 
addition to this, he needs to have practical Phre- 
nology enough, at command, to enable him to de- 
termine the exact balance of Faculties, and thus 
to know the leading or controlling element of each 



232 HE THEN KNOWS WHAT TO DO. 

scholar, his capabilities, and his main character- 
istics. Thus fitted, the Teacher has what he needs, 
and what is indispensable, to wit : Whatever he 
does in School, to one or to all, he knows why he 
does it. He is certain what the result will be ; 
just as certain as he would be of the act of holding 
his finger in the blaze of a candle. This is what 
he needs to know. Then the question, in every 
case, as to whether he shall do this or do that, is 
to be decided by the end he wishes to gain. He 
says to himself, if I do this, such will be the re- 
sult ', if that, so-and-so will result ; which of these 
do I wish to bring about ? The instant that is 
determined, he knows what to do ; just as in Chem- 
istry, a third article is produced by the combi- 
nation of two others. This is precisely what a 
Teacher, in the first place, needs to know. 



1 51 . Regard all as Equals — Its Fruit. — A young 
man told me to-day that " he had come to regard 
every person he met, no matter what his business, 
condition, or color, as his equal, and to treat him 
kindly as such." "That's good," said I: "all 
the liappiness a man can possibly gain from his 
relations with others, is to do just as he would be 
done by. Every time a man treats another with 
scorn or contempt, he cuts off a source of human 
sympathy, and has one source of happiness less. 



IS EDUCATION UNDERSTOOD 1 233 

It is the same as thougli happiness was coming to 
us like liquid in a hundred little pipes, and the 
brain was the reservoir : all these could make it 
full, and to have the highest happiness of which 
we are capable it must be full. So by treating 
one man with scorn, we cut oft* one, with contempt 
another, with coldness another, with haughtiness 
another, with indifference another, with hate an- 
other, and so on till half or all the pipes are cut 
off*: how is the pool to be filled to make happi- 
ness for us 1" •■ 

152. Climax of Meanness. — If there be one hu- 
man being meaner than another, it is him who will 
unjustly or oppressively rest the weight of a 
feather upon one who is weaker in mind or body 
than himself. None but a craven spirit will do 
it. It is the hyena, not the lion. 



153. Is Education Understood ? — I ask this ques- 
tion plainly, bluntly — " Is Education understood ?" 
— and I mean, by those who claim to be the intel- 
ligent minds of America 1 I ask the question, so 
that each will answer it for himself. If it is not 
understood, is it not time that something in earnest 
is done ? By being understood, I mean, as Chemis- 
try is understood, as Natural Philosophy is under- 
stood, and the like. Education rests on Natural 
Laws, the same as Chemistry and Natural Philoso- 



234 KEEP A DAILY JOURNAL. 

phy : Laws, in which there is no more " variable- 
ness or shadow of turning." Then why cannot 
it be understood as well as Chemistry and Natural 
Philosophy 1 Will Parents, for their love of their 
children, make themselves thorough masters, as 
they easily can 7 



154. Keep a Daily Journal. — Record Thoughts 
and Events. It is a wonderful School from 16 to 
21 . The struggle of life — the war of toil and of 
pride — has not commenced; and the first pure 
cravings of the mind can be noted : and these no- 
tations will exert a powerful influence in after 
life, in the midst of temptation. You can see 
what you was. It is the " mirror up to nature." 
You can note your departures from yourself. It 
may serve to recal you. At all events, with the 
poetry of your life thus recorded, you must be 
transformed, you must become base, recreant, be- 
fore you can look upon this record with indif- 
ference. Besides, it gives you the art of putting 
your thoughts easily and naturally on paper. 



155. It is a horrible thing to have the sense of 
Fear instilled into the minds of children : Any 
other fear than the fear of doing wrong. The 
consequences are most appalling, and follow the 
unfortunate victim to the grave. It makes 



HORRIBLE EFFECTS OF FEAR. 235 

cowards, dastards, deceivers, hypocrites, knaves, 
villains. It sends a cliill of horror through my 
veins, when I go into a School Room and see at a 
glance, from the deportment of the scholars, that 
they are governed in their actions by the sense of 
fear of the Teacher. I cast a glance through the 
future, and see how fear will destroy all that 
ingenuousness which leads to the frank and 
plump acknowledgment of a fault, to the manly 
and firm maintenance of Truth, and which is at 
once a safeguard and crowning beauty of char- 
acter. You make them lie, now — ^you compel 
them on pain of brutal looks, brutal words, or 
brutal blows, or brutal penance, to lie, cheat, dis- 
semble, deceive. 

156. Education a ^'Profound Subject. ^^ — So is 
setting an egg on end : easy, when understood. 
The subject of Education is no more profound 
than the raising of corn, or the making of shoes. 



157. ^sk Children^ not Command them. — You 
are reading at a fireside, where there are children. 
They play and make more or less noise — ^because 
it is nature for them to do so. But it is necessary 
for you who read and you who listen, to have 
quiet. Ask them to be still, and give the reason 
why you ask it. Don't command them. Why 



236 ASK CHILDREN NOT COMMAND. 

not 1 Because, by a law of Nature, like excites 
like. If you ask, and give the reason, you ex- 
cite the same faculties you exercise — Veneration, 
Benevolence, and order. Causality and Compari- 
son and Adhesiveness. This is inevitable. Then 
you excite a disposition — nay, a desire to comply 
with your request. Whyl Because all the 
faculties are positive. When excited, they de- 
mand gratification, and that can be had only in 
action. So to gratify their faculties, they will 
keep still. The intense desire for activity, may 
make them forget in a little while ; but, then, 
ask again. Say, — " My Son, we can not hear 
when you are making so much noise. We will 
be through, by and by, and then you can go at 
your play again." 

Why not Command ? Because like excites 
like. If you command — if you say, " John, stop 
that noise : I will not have it !" (and so on, and so 
on, according to the quality of the vinegar) — you 
excite Self-Esteem, Approbativeness, Combat ive- 
ness and Destructiveness, and these compel the 
child to disobey you if he can. The question is 
then purely one of force. If the child knows 
you are the strongest — are firm and persistent in 
your purposes — and fears your inflictions for dis- 
regard of your command, he will obey : if not, 
not. These faculties, too, are positive. When 



" COLLEGES, ACADEMIES, AND HIGH SCHOOLs" ! 237 

aroused, they demand gratification. They are the 
antagonistic faculties : given to protect against 
the unjust consequences of assault. They are the 
anti-submission — the anti-complying, the anti- 
gratifying, the anti-concurring, faculties. You 
command. You arouse these faculties. You 
wonder you are not obeyed ! You castigate, in 
some form, and from arousing, inflame them. 
You still wonder that you are disregarded ! 



158. "Phillips, Sampson & Co., also publish 
" 7%e Elements of Intellectual Philosophy. By Fran- 
" CIS Wayland, D. D., President of Brown Univer- 
" ty, author of Elements of Moral Science, &c.; a 
"work designed as a Text Book for Colleges, 
" Academies and High Schools." — ^Advertisement 
in Boston Adv., Dec. 7, 1854. 

There it is ! " Colleges, Academies and High 
Schools !" But how is this 1 Are the millions in 
our Public Schools, cattle, that they can not un- 
derstand the " Elements of Intellectual Philoso- 
phy" 1 Are they cattle, that they do not need 
the knowledge 1 If they are human, do not the 
Scholars in Public Schools, need a knowledge of 
the "Elements of Intellectual Philosophy" as 
much as the Scholars in " Colleges, Academies and 
High Schools '?" Do these latter maintain that they 
" are the people, and that wisdom will die with 



238 FOLLOWING A PROGRAMME. 

them :" that they alone, of all the population, are 
capable of understanding the " Elements of Intel- 
lectual Philosophy" 1 If not, why was not this 
bool£ " designed for the Public Schools," also 1 
How true was my declaration, that Colleges and 
Academies never did, and never will, aid Public 

Schools ! 

1 59. Every Day, Ask of School, the Why of some 
One Thing. — To tell, of your own motion, the rea- 
son — the why — of any thing, is to reason. Exer- 
cise in reasoning, gives strength, facility, skill, 
power, in reasoning. 



160. " Programmed — A Teacher who would 
say to me, that he and the scholars had spent the 
hours allotted to School Exercises for one Term 
according to any Programme whatever, I would use 
my influence to get him appointed to a place suited 
to his capacity, as for instance. Clerk of a lime- 
kiln, or to give oats to the horse once in so many 
hours. A horse is far more like a machine than 
a man is ; and besides he has no immortal soul, 
and none of those high intellectual powers and 
tastes, which fit man for such exalted pleasures, 
and which so greatly enhance his physical enjoy- 
ments. A man with no more originality, with no 
more impulse for the good of the children, with 
no more knowledge of the demands of their na- 



HOW LIARS ARE MADE. 239 

ture, should be placed where he may watch phys- 
ical nature in one fixed, eternal round : as stolid, 
as he would, if in his power, make the innocents 
under his charge. 



161. Force, in the control of human beings, 
amounts to just this : It arouses in the one at- 
tempted to be thus controlled, the same faculties 
you exercise on him ; and makes him feel that he 
would do just to you as you do to him, if he could. 
So we know the influence this has on the mind. 
But you say, you make the child obey. Yes, you 
do. But suppose by your side, stood a spiral 
spring, and that with your hand, or a whip or a 
ferule, you should apply force enough to press 
the wires together. You desired them to be to- 
gether, and they have obeyed you. But take off 
your hand, whip or ferule — withdraw the force 
you applied, and where is it 1 



162. Liars. — Nine-tenths of the liars who infest 
society — who destroy their own peace, and happi- 
ness, and that of others by this wretched vice — 
are made such by Parents and Teachers. Chil- 
dren are brimful of confidence. They love to 
trust. But for the folly and inhumanity they 
meet in their path, it would be the same at 21, 
and so on through life. 



240 FORGIVENESS. 

Parents and Teachers make liars of children by 
the false manner and spirit in which their errors 
and short-comings and peccadillos are treated. 
When a child is thus voted delinquent, the Parent 
or Teacher assumes that the child is guilty ; and 
by the preliminary treatment, if the child is guil- 
ty, places him in this position : — " If I tell the 
" Truth in regard to my wrong, I shall be rewar- 
" ded with a violent scolding, or peevish Caudle 
" lecture, with frowns, indignant, oppressive si- 
" lence, and the total withdrawal of sympathy, or 
" with loss of food, loss of sport, with a dungeon, 
" or with the whip. If I tell a lie, I may escape : 
" I can no more than suffer." Such is the posi- 
tion in which people place children when they do 
wrong ; and still some are so senseless as to won- 
der that so many of them are liars, when they 
come to manhood and womanhood. 



1 63 . Forgiveness, — Is it wise to "forgive and for- 
get" insult and injury 1 Did Christ have regard for 
the interests and happiness of men and women, 
when he said : " But I say unto you. Love your 
" enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to 
" them that hate you ; and pray for them which 
" despitefully use you, and persecute you." What 
must be the opinion on this point, of those who 
believe Him infinite in Wisdom and Justice and 



WORKS AND WORDS OF CHRIST. 241 

Benevolence'? Were these words of Christ in 
harmony with the law He has written on the 
Nature of Man ? To ascertain that, is one of the 
noblest purposes for which Reason was given. 
" Come, now, and let us Reason together, saith the 
Lord." 

Now what commentary do Facts and Reason 
furnish upon the unqualified comirand of Christ *? 
It is natural for Combativeness, Dcstructiveness, 
Self-Esteem and Approbativeness, tu wish to "give 
it to 'em" when we are injured or insulted ; to 
injure them in return ; to " punish" them, as we 
call it. These Faculties thirst for Revenge ; to 
them it is sweet ; they " roll it as a sweet morsel 
under the tongue" ; the desire grows stronger by 
the continuation of its indulgence ; and Firmness 
keeps them to the work, with some for days, some 
for months, some for years, some for life. " Re- 
venge is sweet" to these faculties ; it is their nat- 
ural function ; it is their law ; they can not seek 
anything else ; they can not act in any other way 
— when they have the supremacy. You must and 
will be revengeful, so long as you allow these 
Faculties to rule you. 

But turn the tables. Elect another sovereignty. 
Declare a new government, with the Moral Facul- 
ties supreme. Install Conscientiousness, Venera- 

11 



242 NATURAL LAW OF FORGIVENESS. 

tion and Benevolence as your rulers, and liow 
changed the scene ! What is Revenge ? It is to 
do an injury to another. Will Conscientiousness 
— will Veneration — will Benevolence — allow you 
to do this 1 They say you shall treat that person 
justly, respectfully, kindly, at all times. It is 
their law : they can not possibly make you wish 
to do any thing else. The Intellect will decide 
that no good can come from injuring another ; 
that the second wrong is no more or less than a 
wrong. And Facts and Reason declare, that, in 
the Constitution of Man, the Moral Faculties and 
the Intellect should have the Supremacy. 

Thus it is seen that the command of Christ, and 
the law of man's nature, are in perfect harmony. 
If a man say he will " forgive and forget," he 
can. It will be hard at first. The battle of Su- 
premacy will be contested. But the second will 
be less ferocious ; and each success paves the way 
for a new and easier triumph. By keeping under 
— by silencing — the Faculties which demand grat- 
ification in Revenge ; by condemning them to in- 
activity, like an arm kept perpetually in a sling, 
they lose the power to assert and maintain Su- 
premacy. The work is done. You are a happier 
as well as a better and a stronger man : you look 
upon everything about you with a delight to which, 
under another rule, you were a stranger. You feel 



FOR WORDS WE WANT FACTS. 243 

as much, fresher, and cleaner, and stronger, as he 
who puts on a clean change of linen, when that 
abandoned had been on too long. It is the hand- 
somest speculation any man or woman can go in- 
to, who has an eye to the greatest amount of hap- 
piness and the very sweetest delights of life. 

If these things be so, can the Parent or Teacher 
find higher or more valuable vocation, than in 
giving to his or her pupils the philosophy of For- 
giveness 1 



164. Colleges and Academies, but establish 
(through the State aid) an Aristocracy of Words 
and Technicalities. We don't want the Public 
Schools inoculated with such stuff. In them, we 
want Nature, the work of God, supreme. In the 
Colleges, let Words and Technicalities, the inven- 
tions of Man, be supreme. 



165. I have found a pertinent and striking il- 
lustration of the prevalent Error in the Science of 
Man, pointed out in Section 139, viz: The idea, 
that the Faculties of Children are not fully devel- 
oped : that the Involuntary Faculties — which are 
19-20ths — which receive all impressions, are not as 
perfect in young children, as in grown up children. 
(Only one exception, out of about forty !) I find 
the Illustration of this Error, on p. 128, Vol. III., 



244 NORMAL SCHOOL ILLUSTRATION. 

New- York Teacher^ December, 1854, in an able 
article on " The Process of Educatiorij'^ and it is 
stated in these words : — 

" We conceive that the first step in the intellectual edu- 
cation of a child, is thoroughly to arouse his curiosity. It 
is well known to all observers of child nature (I'.ot to say 
human nature) that the gratification of curiosity is one of 
the most fruitful sources of pleasure." 

The writer of this erroneous, unscientific ex- 
tract, is a person of most decided talent ; gradu- 
ated at the New- York State Normal School, in Ju- 
ly, 1854, and now occupies a post as teacher in a 
High School. If the ablest, and those among the 
Leaders, preach rank Error, what must be their 
practice 1 — and what their influence on the State 1 
My views are given in 139. It is only necessary 
to add, that if this writer had studied Combe's 
Constitution of Man^and Combe's Phrenology^ at the 
Normal School, she would never, after completing 
them, have again committed this fundamental, fa- 
tal and sweeping Error in the Science of the 
School Room, of making a distinction between 
" child nature" and " human nature." It is a 
Falsehood which at one swoop undermines the 
whole structure of Truth, and substitutes Anarchy 
for Order. 

166. Equality of Cause and Effect. — The equali- 
ty of Cause and Effect ; or the Truth, that, in all 
the UniversCj in all that lives, moves, and is con- 



WE PLEASE THOSE WHO LOVE US. 245 

tained in it, the same cause always produces tlie 
same effect, is a Truth that we find existing. 



167. What will always be the Quality of Teacher si 
— A great deal is said in regard to the failure of 
-Teachers to be all that is desired — that they " are 
no better than they should be," and all that. 

All this talk arises from the circumstance— not 
an unusual one in the affairs of life — that the Ef- 
fect is mistaken for the Cause. 

Now, the simple truth, is, that the Teachers are 
just as good as the people want. I do not say as 
good as they need. But it is true, they are as 
good as the people want. No man capable of rea- 
soning, will deny this. If the people wanted bet- 
ter Teachers, they would have better Teachers. 
That is the whole of it. And there is one way, 
and one way only, to obtain better Teachers, and 
that is to create a demand for better Teachers by 
paying better Teachers better wages. 



168. Control of Scholars. — We do not care 
whether or not we please those who do not mani- 
fest love for us ; and we do care very much about 
pleasing those who do. The law : Like excites 
like, 

I will add here, that some seem to mistake the 
nature of love. It is never a negation. It does 



246 NEW OBJECTS OF SCIENCE. 

something. It is positive. It must do something. 
It is an impulse : it must do. It does not consist 
in NOT hurting, but in doing good. Love, there- 
fore, as above stated, controls. 



169. ^'Educated^^ Funnels, — The great body of 
so-called " men of education," are funnels, who 
give out, in the thirtieth dilution, what whole and 
live men have said. Education, now, does not 
develope. The only men who produce anything 
— who contribute to the aggregate of science and 
ideas — are the Gideonite band, who are so com- 
plete and powerful by nature, that they can not he 
squeezed into the prescribed pattern by the machine 
called Education. They produce. Now, all the 
rest are funnels for it to run through. 



170. Forcing Study. — There are teachers who 
compel or force scholars to study, and think it 
does them good ! All I have to say, is, that when 
any teacher does it, he ought to write in his Jour- 
nal at night — " God never designed me for this 
business. Amen." 



171. Objects of Science. — It has ever been set 
before mankind, that the object of Science .is to 
" soar among the stars," to " ride with the hurri- 
cane," and to do all sorts of things, that people 



STUFFING, VS. REPETITION. 247 

have no occasion to do. So Science has failed to 
interest mankind. But when its true mission is 
understood, it will be eagerly sought. When it 
comes to be known, that not only is there as much 
DivineWisdom and as much Beauty in laws which 
govern the growth of a potato root, as in a fixed 
star, or constellation of stars, and that also the 
man who understands the Science can raise better 
potatoes and more of them with the same labor, 
it will be sought after. 



172. Stuffing J and Want of Repetition. — These 
are the two grand follies or curses of the present 
mode — not system — of Education. So much is 
stuffed, or attempted to be stuffed, into the scholar 
every day, as to destroy digestion ; and without 
digestion, there can be no growth. And so they 
go on from day to day — from year to year — no 
repetition, as there should be 3 and the result is, 
that at the end of a term, and of school days, 
they " know enough," poor souls, as they say, " if 
they could only tell it" ! Give us one thing at a 
time, and Repetition — Repetition — Repetition — 
and we will show you powerful, elastic, and well 
stored minds. 

173. Every man must Educate Himself. — He 
cannot go to School always : he must leave at 21 
or before that, and go out into the world : leave 



248 USE OF WORDS. 

School at all events. Here then are the two parts 
of the Panorama of Life ; 1st part, in Sc''iool ° 2d 
part, out of Scl -ol. Well, now what is the rea- 
sonable conclusion 1 You will not say his Edu- 
cation is complete when he leaves School 7 No. 
Then he must Educate himself after he leaves 
School 1 Certainly. Then what should he do 
when in School ] If he do not educate himself in 
School, how has he been fitted for that work 1 



174. Use of Words. — In examining this mat- 
ter, I have come to this general conclusion : That 
small ideas, feeble and vague impressions, and 
little thoughts, are expressed in big words ! And 
that large ideas, vivid and strong impressions, 
and great thoughts, are expressed in little words. 
Daniel Webster made a speech at Buffalo, on the 
22d day of May, 1851, of nearly two hours, on 
the political state of the country. Certainly no 
greater topic could occupy the mind of Daniel 
Webster, than this. I have counted the words, 
and they are in number, 8,822. Of these, 6,371 
are Monosyllables ! 



175. Emulation. — Emulation is the parent of 
dishonesty. You offer a child or youth a prize, 
and he will get it — honestly, if he can — but get 
it. AcquisHiveness, Self-Esteem and Love of Ap- 



EMULATION. 249 

probation, are stimulated to the highest activity 
— the moral Faculties not stimulated at all — put 
to sleep — the Selfish gain the ascendency in activ- 
ity, and what is the consequence 1 If a lie is 
needed, a lie is furnished. If necessary to do in- 
justice to another, to secure the Prize, injustice is 
done. If duplicity, hypocrisy, meanness, fraud, 
false pretences, — whatever may be found in the 
catalogue of human depravity short of horrid 
acts of overt crime — if any or all these are need- 
ed to secure the Prize, any, or all are brought in 
aid. Why ? Because the Selfish Sentiments and 
Propensities — and the Selfish Sentiments and Pro- 
pensities only — are appealed to when the Prize 
is offered. They only are stimulated to activity. 
Talk about your " noble ambition," and all that : 
it is just as noble as sublimated selfishness. It is 
neither more nor less than that. What Moral 
Faculty is called into exercise, in such a contest 1 
What Moral Faculty is to be gratified by success, 
in this rivalry 1 Is it Conscientiousness ? — Vene- 
ration '? — Benevolence '? Does Conscientiousness 
find gratification in a triumph over another, by 
means either fair or foul ? Does such triumph 
warm Veneration into a genial glow? Do we 
feel more respect for our rival than we did before ? 
Does he feel more for us ? Does a triumph pro- 

11* 



250 COMMENDING CHILDREN. 

dnce in the mind of the Victor, the ecstatic joys 
which excited Benevolence alone can give ? 

Parents and Teachers must look the Philosophy 
of Emulation straight in the face. If the legiti- 
mate offspring — aje^ the inevitable tendency — of 
Emulation, excited by Prizes or tangible Rewards 
of any kind, be Lying, Deceit, Hypocrisy, Mean- 
ness, Treachery, Injustice, Fraud, Pride, Scorn, 
Contempt, Egotism, Vanity, and Want of Sympa- 
thy or Brotherhood of Feelings then those who do 
not want to raise such fruit, should not plant the 
seed. Men do not " gather grapes of thorns, or 
figs of thistles." 

176. ^'■Thafs Right. — If those two words, in ref- 
erence to the conduct and achievements of schol- 
ars, were heard in school ten times a day, where 
they are now heard once, I had almost said ten 
times the advance would be made. This I do 
know, that the Happiness of the Scholars would 
be ten times what it now is. It will be a happy 
day, when criticism and discrimination, shall find 
its laurels in discovering and recognizing beauties 
as well as defects. 



177. "Fow will hurt yourself the most?'^ — At 
all times, by every illustration in your power, be 
ready to make plain to young children, that when- 
ever they do anything they know they ought not 



REPULSION AND ADHESION. 251 

to do, tliey are sure "to hurt themselves the 
most." Occasions will occur often enough when 
you can drop a remark, and it will not be lost. 
The beauty of this, is, that the principle, in ope- 
ration, comes home so that you can make them 
feel and understand it. I wall barely add, here, 
that I have the smallest possible idea of sermons 
to young children, those who think differently, 
are in conscience bound to preach them. 



178. Repulsion and Adhesion. — There are two 
classes of Social Faculties : one to Attract — one 
to Repel. Which class of faculties is exercised, 
in the past and present System of intercourse be- 
tween Teacher and Scholars 1 The teacher goes 
into the School — the first thing is, by acts, looks 
and words, to proclaim his superiority. This does 
not attract. The next is to speak sharply, harsh- 
ly, look frowningly, and slap or whip severely, 
those who do wrong — according to his " code." 
These do not attract. The next thing is always 
to treat the scholars as though they had no desire 
to be about as good as they can be. This does 
not attract. The next thing is to treat them with 
distrust, as though as a matter of course their 
first wish and purpose was to annoy and cheat 
the Teacher. This does not attract. In the next 
place. Teachers never have any talk with the 



252 VIRTUE, AND ITS SUPREMACY. 

scholars, as their uncles and aunts do, when they 
come to see them. This does not attract. In the 
next place, they never visit the folks at home, as 
a matter of neighborly sociabili iy, to exchange 
the greetings and compliments oi 'he day. This 
does not attract. 

Now is it any wonder that the scholars do not 
particularly love or respect such a teacher, do 
not love to be where he is, and that they regard 
the School with that feeling of repulsiveness which 
they must have, so long as it remains a law of the 
iiuman mind, that "like excites like"? 

Every one will draw the reverse of this picture, 
and its results, for himself. All I ask of the Pa- 
rent or Teacher is, to ever bear in mind that there 
are two classes of Social Faculties. The one, to 
Attract, which is for a state of friendship. The 
other, to Repel, which is for a state of war. And 
each can decide for himself which class 'predomi- 
nates in his case. The former never will, howev- 
er, in a Teacher in whose head still remains the 
miserable delusion of the inferiority in Rights of 
Children to his own great I-am-ativeness. 



179. "Few must pluck up the Weeds of Vice, be- 
roRE you plant the Seeds of Virtue.^'' — So say the 
old Kaleidoscope "Philosophers," to this day. 
But Philosophy teaches better things. It teaches 



BOYS AND GIRLS. 253 

that Virtue, is the supremacy of one set of Facul- 
ties, and that Vice is the supremacy of another set. 
Philosophy shows how the Faculties which estab- 
lish the supremacy of Virtue, can be made strong, 
and to desire activity, which is absolute triumph. 
As to "plucking" : In reference to scholars, the 
idea seems to have been, that Vice should be ab- 
sorbed by the bark of a birch rod. 



180. Pity. — No man or woman is fit to take 
charge of a School, who, in Intellectual convic- 
tion and in feeling, has not drank in the full Phi- 
losophy, and attained the Power, of warm, ear- 
nest Pity for those who do Wrong. 



181. Boys and Girls. — Women, they say, are not 
as smart as Men. May be they are not. But 
Girls are as smart as Boys. What boy, at school, 
ever thought the girls in the school were not as 
smart as the boys'? What Teacher ever thought 
so ? If so, how came they to be placed in the 
same class, in every study, with the same allot- 
ment of lesson '? When and where, in this com- 
petition, did the boys of a school ever prove them- 
selves the smartest 1 JVb matter what the study is, 
at school, the girls are always even or ahead in 
the class. This is simple matter of fact, known 
to everybody who ever went to school. But you 



254 WHICH ARE THE SMARTEST ? 

say to me. Men are smarter than Women. Sup- 
pose I say so, too. And why? Because when the 
girl leaves school — the moment she pretends to 
call herself a " Woman," it is " good-bye" to the 
exercise of her intellect, and to all impressions 
of a character to call for a vigorous exercise of 
her reasoning powers. She must not express an 
opinion on political questions : that is unfeminine : 
that is not the " feminine element" ! Oh, no ; if 
she has an opinion, at all, it must be on gew-gaws, 
puddings, or the latest fashions ! — on the cut of 
So-and-so's coat or bonnet, or the color and set of 
Mrs. So-and-so's dress. That is "feminine" : but 
an opinion on politics,morals, or religion — that is 
of the masculine gender. Not to stop to discuss 
this, I wish merely to say, that when the girls 
leave school, the Intellect, for life, ceases to act, 
and therefore ceases to grow, and therefore the 
MEN are smarter than the women, because the men 
use their Intellect. 

But do you say, that there are certain plodding, 
long-headed matters, requiring long processes, of 
regular steps of investigation and reasoning, to 
which women are not competent '? Do you say 
so 1 — and do you believe so 1 — and is this really 
so ? Indeed ! And what then 1 Why, w^omen 
mill let them alone I — that's all. Did you ever 
know a Woman who was a Blacksmith '? But you 



NATURE, THE TRUE GUIDE. 255 

know that women are postmasters, merchants, 
farmers, tailors, milliners, clerks, copyists, teach- 
ers, concert singers, actors, doctors, preachers, lec- 
turers, — and why 1 Why these, and not Black- 
smiths 1 Because they want to be the one, and do 
not want to be the other. Because they obey the 
law of Nature — and that is to do what they desire 
to do. If there are certain things in mental labor 
that women can' not do, let no old fogy be alarmed 
— ^they wont do them. If they attempt them, 
they will soon quit : for want of pleasure will go 
with want of power for success. The Almighty 
has arranged this matter perfectly. He has made 
it a law, that pleasure can not be derived from 
undertaking to do what we have not the power to 
do with success : and it is also a law, that pleasure 
does follow activity in what we have the power 
by nature to do Avell. And, moreover, power or 
fitness and inclination go together. And still 
moreover, no one but the individual can judge or 
determine this matter — any more than another 
can say what dish on the table you relish best for 
dinner. To attempt one, is as absurd as to attempt 
the other. Here, then, we have the whole mat- 
ter. All we have to do, in the premises, is to let 
every individual, occupy his or her powers and 
faculties of body and mind, according to these 
laws, and it will all be right, just as certainly as 



256 STATE EDUCATIONAL SURVEY. 

that fire will continue to scorch your fingers if 
you put them in it. In the unutterable depths of 
his folly and stupidity, Man interposes, saying, in 
more than words, that " the Deity did not know 
how to finish and regulate his work" — and above 
all, that which they declare was '' Heaven's last, 
best gift to man." Singular contradiction. Won- 
derful, indeed, that of all the works of an Infi- 
nite Creator, the last alone can not safely be gov- 
erned by the laws of its own being ! 



182. Public School Policy — Educational Sur- 
vey. — I recommend most respectfully and unqual- 
ifiedly, that the State of New- York enter upon an 
Educational Survey. That this Survey embrace all 
Schools organized under its General Laws for the 
promotion of Public Education, and no other, ex- 
cept unincorporated or " private" Schools. That 
the idea of this Survey be, that it shall occupy 
Five Years. That a certain number of Educa- 
tional Engineers shall be appointed ; enough, in 
about two years, to make a Report on the whole 
State. That they shall be paid an equal and lib- 
eral salary. That the State shall be mapped into 
Districts, for this Survey ; and each Engineer as- 
signed to specified territory. That the Appoint- 
ing Board consist of Three Persons, to be entitled 
the New- York Educational Survey Commission. 



APPOINTMENT OF ENGINEERS. 257 

To secure personal responsibility, the vote on each 
appointment, and on every question of Policy as 
to the Regulations of the Survey which may be 
left to them, shall be by Yeas and Nays, and shall 
be published in the State Paper. That this Com- 
mission shall have a Clerk, whose duty it shall be 
to record, in a permanent book, a full Report of 
the doings of the Board, which are to be read and 
approved in the usual manner, and to be open to 
every human being in the State. That the men 
who compose this Commission, should be of Oppo- 
site Classes of mind. I would have a known 
Progressive, a Conservative, and a Moderado. 
Two must concur in every appointment. The 
vote on rejections not to he published. That the 
Engineers thus appointed, should be men who in- 
stinctively take an interest in the Education of 
Children ; who are out-door men, and not book 
worms ; who observe the doings of to-day, and 
who are never on their knees, — with their backs 
on the present and the future — ^in worship of what 
the heathen of Greece and Rome said and did ; 
men who learn from books, but many fold more 
from nature, by original observation and thought. 
Not necessarily speechifying men, but men who 
can talk freely with their neighbors, and under- 
stand and be understood : and who can be inter- 
ested in, and have the tact to promote and make 



258 THIS PLACES THE QUESTION 

interesting, a Conversational Meeting at the School 
House, or at the hospitable fireside of a farmer, 
mechanic, or merchant. Each Engineer must 
go with memorandum book and pencil in hand. 
What he sees — what he hears — what he thinks — we^ 
the whole people of the State^ are to know. He is 
to make a note, daily, of what opinions he hears 
— of the plans he hears suggested — of the argu- 
ments he hears advanced — and of his own con- 
clusions or reflections. He is to visit all the 
schools in his District ; to note down in each case 
the character of the building and lot ; the num- 
ber of Scholars under eight years of age ; the age 
of the Teacher, and how many terms taught ; the 
studies that the Teacher deems himself competent 
to manage successfully ; the studies pursued, and 
the number, except Reading, Writing and Spell- 
ing, pursued by each ; the state of advancement ; 
the manner in which the studies are taught ; and 
such other matters as seem desirable to the Engi- 
neer. These are all to be transferred into the 
Engineer's diary, which shall be a convenient and 
permanent bound volume, furnished by the State, 
and which, when filled, shall be the property of 
tlie State. In this, the Engineer shall keep a dai- 
ly Journal, Sundays excepted. Thus, so far as he 
goes, the Engineer's diary, will show the exact con- 
dition of School Education^ as relates to Children, 



IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE. 259 

to Teachers^ and to Parents^ in each District. This 
Journal to be written in a plain hand, so as to be 
easily available for purposes of copying, making 
abstracts, or otherwise. The Educational Survey 
Commission, by the same vote as in conferring the 
oflQ.ce, to have unconditional power to revoke any 
appointment they may have made. I would have 
the Engineer's Diary, of a size that it would last 
for six months only, or less. From these Diaries, 
as thus sent in, let a competent man or men pre- 
pare such of the materials as he or they may deem 
fit, for a firmly bound Semi- Annual volume by the 
State, for each School District in the State, con- 
taining the diary in full, or in part, of each Edu- 
cational Engineer, for the past six months. By 
this^ each School District^ in due time^ will be in- 
formed of the Educational Condition of every other 
School District in the State. They will also have 
the Plans, Ideas, Arguments, Opinions, Feelings, 
and Desires of the people of every other school 
district. After two years, I would change the 
districts of the Engineers, and let one go over the 
ground another has traversed before him. And 
so, for five years, let the Reports come in, and 
semi-annually let them be placed in the hands of 
every human being in the State. 
We want no more Tinkering ! 



APPENDIX. 



[From the Syracuse Daily Journal, August 28, 1852.] 

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE— ONE SCHOOL SES- 
SION A DAY. 

Mr. Editor : — From the Report of a Committee of 
the Board of Education, published early this month, I 
learn that there is great complaint in regard to the Ir- 
regularity of Attendance of the Scholars in our Public 
Schools, and as to Tardiness. 

There can be no manner of doubt, that these eyils are 
truthfully, as they are most ably and eloquently pointed 
out, in the Report of the Committee of the Board. 

But at the same time, it is a matter for rejoicing, and 
not lamentation. It shows that Nature is stronger than 
School Regulations. And whatever Regulations may be 
adopted by any Board, or by any authority, what is true 
now, will continue to be true to the end of the Chapter, 
so long as the absurd, ruinous and ridiculous system of 
confining children, in summer, to those " tight air" 
School Rooms, for six hours in a day, is persisted in. 
And may it ever be so ! Three Hours a Day is as long 
as any human being, before maturity of bodily growth, 
ought ever to be confined to a School Room ; and in the 
course of that, there should be two recesses of a quarter 
of an hour each. 

Such of the people of this country, as are not com- 
pelled to rely on the manual labor of their children for 
their support, are Schooling their children to death. 
They are raising a generation of slight, frail, flimsy, 
shrunken, nervous men and women, with no physical 
stamina whatever. At 4 years of age — certainly at 5 — 
the little innocents are crammed into a room where the 
air is alniost bad enough to put out a lighted candle, and 
there, except when nature occasionally "gives out," they 



APPENDIX. 261 

are kept 6 hours in a day, and 10 months in a year — 
kept from exercise at the very hours when the laws of 
Physiology declare they should exercise — until they are 
from 15 to 21, and then what are they, physically or 
mentally? As destitute of stamina, of vigor, of power 
of endurance, in the one, as of elasticity, originality, and 
self-reliance and independence in the other. 

The main business of children is to grow. Whoever 
interferes with that — with the greatest perfection of sol- 
id, stalwart, physical developement — on whatever pre- 
tence, shows that he is utterly unfit for their control or 
care. So far from securing to a child higher mental ca- 
pacity, by this quack attempt to cultivate the mental, to 
the extent of one hour, or a day, or a week, at the ex- 
pense of the physical, the very purpose in view is defea- 
ted with the most absolute certainty. For the first re- 
quisite of a sound and strong mind, is a sound and strong 
body ; for the manifestations of mind depend on the 
body. 

Now, does he who shuts up young boys and girls from 
5 to 15 years of age, in one of those "tight air" rooms, 
in one of our barns, alias School Houses, violate these 
laws, or does he not? Not only this, but shuts them up, 
from 9 to 12 A. M., and from 2 to 5 P. M., at the very 
time when the laws of nature demand that they have ex- 
tensive exercise in the open air ? Is this wisdom, or is 
it folly ? It is wisdom, if feeble, nerveless, shrunken 
chests, be wisdom. If an erect form, a large and broad 
chest, and an iron frame, capable of mental and physical 
endurance, be wisdom, then the present system of man- 
agement, whether nick-named Education or any thing 
else, is the supreme of folly. 

The children know enough to stay away, from such a 
body-and-mind-killing system, as the Report already re- 
ferred to, abundantly shows. And so long as the present 
" treatment" continues, they will show themselves sharp 
enough and wise enough to continue to do so. 

Again : The Folly of the present system, is as appa- 
rent in reference to Teachers, as to Scholars. Of all 



262 APPENDIX. 

pursuits, Teaching is the most exhausting. If a Teacher 
does his or her duty — if good for anything — the labor 
is constant exhaustion of the brain — or, in other words, 
exhaustion of the Electric Power of the System. When 
the electric power is exhausted, the power of body and 
mind is exhausted. It is a living fact, that the great 
share of Teachers — not all — after a few years' service, 
find their health impaired. This would not be the case, 
if they taught but one session a day. The balance of 
the day could be devoted to exercise in the open air ; to 
study and reading ; and what would be more valuable, to 
mixing with society and learning by observation, those 
lessons in regard to practical affairs which would be used 
as illustrations in the otherwise mechanical "A B C" 
round of instruction so often to be met with. They 
would come to the work every day, not only refreshed 
both in elasticity and electric energy of body and mind, 
but with knowledge gained for illustration and interest. 

How is it with Clergymen ? Do they not always re- 
gard two se7'vices hi a day, of an hour and a half each, 
as exhausting ? Why ? Because of the mental labor — 
the drain of the electricity of the system. It is propor- 
tionately the same with the Teacher. If this is all true, 
it is quite unnecessary to say, that this exaction of the 
two sessions a day, while an injury to the Teacher, is not 
less so to the interests of those who employ him. There 
can be no more mistaken notion, than to suppose that 
progress in mental power, or even in learning facts, by 
children in school, is in proportion to the number of 
hours they are in the School Room. Every person who 
thinks of the subject one minute, will see that it is in 
proportion to the amount of time the mind is actively 
employed. Now, any body who knows anything about 
Schools knows, as a general fact, that that is but a small 
share of the hours there spent. 

But if the children did or could so occupy their minds, 
for these consecutive hours, under such circumstances of 
bodily confinement, then the argument would be conclu- 
sive, that the present system is a humbug, and what is 
more, a curse. 



APPENmx, 263 

For no man living, who is any tMng like respectable 
authority in Physiology, but will declare that such men- 
tal labor, during the period of the growth of the body, is 
inconsistent with the welfare of the body. 

If the Schools were kept but One Session a day, they 
would be crowded, and with Regularity. The Chil- 
dren would go as to a delightful recreation, and relaxa- 
tion — knowing they were not to be stupefied and wearied 
out by being pinned to a bench or a chair for the live-long 
day. During the afternoon and evening, at intervals of 
play, as an equally pleasing relaxation, and looking for- 
ward with agreeable anticipations to the pleasant meet- 
ing, and not the weary and tiresome meeting, of the next 
day at the School Room, the lessons are prepared, and 
being prepared with alacrity and therefore energy, are 
well prepared ; — and thus, instead of the flinty, and bri- 
ary, and repulsive " hill of science," which ignorance of 
Natural Laws has set up as the road to knowledge, it 
would be an inviting pathway, adorned with beautiful 
arbors and strewn with flowers, the onward march being 
to the melody of murmuring rills of heart-felt ecstacy 
and delight. 

— These are but a glance at the multitude of thoughts 
which come thronging about this immensely important 
point in the structure of a School System. This Change 
alone, would half revolutionize the present unphilosophi- 
cal and therefore absurd System : would change its torpid 
stupidity, insipidity and fretful inanity, for pleasantness, 
energy, buoyancy and power. But the conclusion I adopt 
from what little I have said, is, that difliculties to the 
same extent, from Irregularity of School Attendance, will 
continue to exist, till at least this potent cause is re- 
moved. For I do not believe the only other alternative 
— that the Teachers have not sufficient capacity, skill and 
tact, to interest the Scholars — is true. 

There is nothing " alarming" in the present condition 
of things. It is no more alarming than the fact that wa- 
ter runs down hill — for one is as natural and inevitable 
as the other. An attempt has been made to Educate the 



264 APPENDIX. 

Children to death, and the Children wont stand it. That 
is all there is about it, except that they never will stand it. 

Education is a Science, as well as an Art ; as much so 
as the Tanning of Leather, the Coloring of Cloth, or the 
Manufacture of Chemicals : is of course governed by as 
fixed laws of Cause and Effect. Only men of sublime 
genius and magnificent talent, can understand this most 
comprehensive, beautiful, yet simple Science, ivithout so 
much as one d.ai/s study of its numerous Laws, or in 
reference to their application. 

But whether understood or not, if we will insist upon 
every day trespassing on the life-blood of the Scholars, 
and so wearying Teachers, that they have not the energy 
or the opportunity to keep up with the times, and with 
the current ideas and history of their own country and of 
the world, by associating with the people in the various 
walks and avocations of life, and gathering new ideas by 
observation, reading and thought, and new life and vigor 
and buoyancy by free and active and vigorous exercise in 
the open air, at hours when such exercise will impart 
permanent vigor to the frame, — then we may be assured 
that the Penal Code of Van Dieman's Land will not biing 
Children to School with Kegularity, because the Parents 
of those Children are, and will ever be, the power of the 
city. They will therefore never be compelled to submit 
to any power but their own. 

Voluntary, free, cheerful Mental Labor, is the only 
mental labor that adds strength to the mind, or is of value 
in the acquisition of knowledge. For Memory is the 
sum of the latter ; Attention is the secret of Memory ; 
and Interest is the secret of Attention. As to the truth 
of this general proposition, there will be little dispute, 
except among the unthinking and stupid. Then, if so, 
we have the key to the whole. This simple, yet beauti- 
ful and controlling Principle, underlies the whole struc- 
ture of a true School System. 

W. L. CRANDAL. 
Syracuse, Aug. 27, 1852. 




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